4 Growth Stocks to Buy and Hold Forever

Growth stocks aren't too tough to find -- a simple web search will often do the trick. Finding growth stocks you can buy and hold forever, however, is a different story. Every industry evolves over time. A company must be able to evolve with it or face extinction. Kodak and Blockbuster come to mind.

With that as the backdrop, here's a rundown of four great growth stocks that are not only firing on all cylinders right now, but should be able to adapt as needed as their markets and products mature.

Palo Alto Networks

If you think cybercrime is slowing down, think again. It's still as much of a problem as it ever was. Indeed, the World Economic Forum estimates that cybercrime is the world's third-largest economy (behind the U.S. and China). As a result, business consulting outfit McKinsey & Company suggests fighting cybercrime could eventually be a $2 trillion market in and of itself. That's roughly 10 times the amount of money spent on cyberdefense in 2021.

Palo Alto Networks (PANW 0.68%) offers a suite of firewalls, threat detection tools, secure-connectivity solutions, malware defenses, and more. Its flagship product is arguably its zero-trust network access platform, which protects networks from hackers without making it overly difficult for authorized users to plug in to the same network.

And the company's already capitalizing on the industry-wide growth McKinsey says is in the cards. Revenue is on pace to grow more than 25% this year despite the lethargic economy, and analysts believe Palo Alto Networks will grow its top line another 21% next year. That kind of sales growth simply extends a long-standing trend that doesn't look like it's going to slow down anytime soon.

Snowflake

Snowflake (SNOW -0.44%) is a compelling growth stock for some of the same reasons as Palo Alto.

Snowflake isn't exactly a household name, although there's a good chance you or someone in your household has unknowingly benefited from its service. This company helps enterprise-level organizations manage and effectively use all the data they choose to upload to the cloud. Better cost control, data-quality testing, consumer-intent prediction, and geographically based data analysis are just some of the tools it offers, tools that outfits like AT&T, DoorDash, and Capital One are using, just to name a few.

Snowflake shares aren't cheap. In fact, the company's unprofitable on a GAAP basis, and the stock's priced at a frothy 300 times this year's projected non-GAAP per-share earnings. The forward-looking price/earnings ratio of 182 isn't meaningfully better. As such, this pick isn't quite right for the average value investor.

If you can stomach the stress and volatility that most red-hot high-growth stocks tend to dish out, though, this year's and next year's expected revenue growth of more than 30% is worth tapping into.

Advanced Micro Devices

There's no denying Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 1.78%) plays proverbial second fiddle to graphics card titan Nvidia, as well as computer processor king Intel. In some ways, however, being the second-biggest player in an industry is an advantage. A particular market's biggest company has to think defensively in order to protect its leading market share. A smaller outfit can think and act aggressively, since it's got far more to gain than it's got to lose.

And Advanced Micro Devices is taking brilliant advantage of this very scenario.

Case in point: After failing to keep up with Nvidia's artificial intelligence R&D for the past few years, last month AMD unveiled its MI300X processor, built from the ground up to handle generative AI duties. That debut follows May's rumors that -- in an effort to tamp down Nvidia's dominance -- Microsoft is partnering with Advanced Micro Devices to help usher AMD into the AI arena. Were Advanced Micro Devices the dominant name in the business, Microsoft might be helping Nvidia instead.

In the meantime, AMD continues to win its fair share of the computer processor and graphics card market, bringing lots of computing power to consumers and corporations at a relatively low price. Its mix of tech and price ranges makes the company more competitive than it may seem on the surface.

Shopify

Finally, add Shopify (SHOP 1.61%) stock to the list of growth stocks you can feel comfortable buying and holding forever.

If you're not familiar with it, Shopify is the antithesis of Amazon. Whereas Amazon requires all of its sellers to use its single platform to list their goods -- and compete with every other seller -- Shopify helps merchants and vendors set up their own stand-alone e-commerce platforms. This allows merchants to collect more vital information about their customers that it doesn't have to share with a competing third party.

And businesses of all sizes are increasingly embracing the idea. Although the company itself no longer publishes a specific figure, plausible estimates indicate there are between 4 million and 6 million active Shopify stores. Meanwhile, we do know that Shopify's customers sold $49.6 billion worth of goods and services during the three-month stretch ending in March, generating $1.5 billion worth of revenue for Shopify itself. Those numbers were up 15% and 25%, respectively, extending a growth pace that's been in place for a few years now.

Don't look for that growth to slow down anytime soon, either. While online stores aren't uncommon these days, Zippia reports that only 36% of small/personal businesses in the United States offer an e-commerce option to customers. That leaves on the order of another 20 million small businesses that could still launch an online sales platform using Shopify's tools, according to the Small Business Administration's count of nearly 33.2 million small businesses. That's a lot of opportunity.