To quote the great Warren Buffett: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful." I'm sure investors would prefer not to experience down periods, but they can bring good opportunities. Chaos in the madness, if you will.
Stock market sell-offs can be a great chance to invest in great companies trading at a value. Here are three growth stocks investors should consider.
1. The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk (TTD -3.59%) is an adtech company that specializes in programmatic advertising. Instead of companies bidding for digital ad space, The Trade Desk is the middleman connecting the companies with the digital ad space provider, similar to how a brokerage platform connects stock sellers and buyers.
After losing more than half its value in 2022, The Trade Desk has picked up steam, up over 44% year to date (as of May 15).
The company increased its Q1 2023 revenue by 21% year over year, which is slower than the growth of its previous four quarters, but still impressive given how the advertising industry has been affected by broader economic conditions.
As connected TVs (think smart TVs, Roku, Apple TV+, etc.) and the ad space they provide become more prominent, The Trade Desk has a chance to build a sizable market share. Trading at more than 57x its forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, you could make the case that it's a bit overvalued, but if a sell-off happens and the stock price drops, it's a good go-to for investors with time on their side.
The company repurchased $293 million worth of its shares in Q1 2023, with $407 million available and authorized for repurchases in the near future. This should signal to investors the company is confident in its long-term execution.
2. Snowflake
There was a lot of hype surrounding Snowflake (SNOW -1.32%) after its September IPO, with its stock price increasing over 60% in less than three months. Snowflake is now down over 30% from its IPO price, but all seems to be well under the hood for the data warehousing platform.
Snowflake's platform allows users to combine and analyze cloud data from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft's Azure, Alphabet's Google Cloud, and other cloud services, and it's been attracting customers at an impressive pace.
At the end of its 2023 fiscal year (ending Jan. 31), Snowflake had more than 7,800 customers, up 31% year over year. Of those customers, 330 spend over $1 million annually with the company, and 573 are in the Forbes Global 2000. Snowflake is doing an impressive job at bringing in large companies that can cut bigger checks.
Data source: Snowflake.
The company's growth has been great, and it's not showing signs of slowing down anytime soon. Although it's not yet profitable, Snowflake's management guided for around 40% year-over-year revenue growth. Snowflake's stock isn't currently undervalued, but if it can maintain its current growth rates for the next few years, it can still provide good returns to investors.
3. Amazon
With a market cap topping $1 trillion, Amazon (AMZN -2.57%) may not seem like a traditional growth stock, but considering what's likely to drive the company's growth, I believe it still deserves the title. After a pandemic-fueled run that doubled its value from March 2020 to July 2021, Amazon is since down more than 40%.
Amazon has begun drastically cutting costs, slashing around 27,000 corporate jobs and rethinking some of its unprofitable divisions (like devices). Although Amazon is known for its e-commerce, its true moneymaker is Amazon Web Service (AWS) -- its most profitable segment.
AWS is the market leader in cloud infrastructure services, and although its growth has slowed compared to recent years because of economic conditions, it's still well positioned to be a cash cow from Amazon going forward as the cloud industry as a whole grows.
Another strategic move that could pay off for Amazon is its approach to the AI evolution. Instead of making a direct competitor with chatbots like ChatGPT and Bard, Amazon built Amazon Bedrock, a platform that lets companies build their own AI applications. Amazon Bedrock itself may not be a huge growth driver for the company, but it'll likely be one for AWS, a segment the company knows it needs to prioritize.
At current price levels, I believe Amazon can still produce good long-term results, but if a sell-off happens and its price drops, it'll be too good of a deal to pass up on.
