The market tends to double once every seven years, on average. Identifying companies that can do it much quicker than that is key to beating the market. While there are multiple ways to accomplish this task, some paths are easier and more steady than others.
With a long-term buy-and-hold strategy, beating the market is possible -- if you can identify stocks with strong upside ahead from a combination of market opportunity and strong execution. To double your money in five years versus seven requires a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15%.
If you're looking for specific stocks with a chance of achieving this target, these two companies are well worth considering now.
CrowdStrike
First on the list is cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike (CRWD 2.03%). CrowdStrike's products focus on endpoint security, which protects network access points like phones or laptops from intruders. Breaches can be quite costly for businesses in terms of reputation, time, and financial resources, and with the prevalence of attacks increasing, companies are spending big on their cybersecurity firepower.
As a result, CrowdStrike has been growing rapidly. In the second quarter of its fiscal 2024 (ended July 31), annual recurring revenue increased by 37% to $2.93 billion. If CrowdStrike can keep this growth rate up, it will double its revenue in just over two years, likely leading to its stock price increasing similarly.
CrowdStrike's growth strategy is twofold -- acquiring new customers and getting existing ones to use more products. In its Q2 conference call, management said, "Heading into the second half of the year, we see increased momentum in the business driven by record levels of new [customers] and upsell pipeline."
With both sides of the business going well, plus the cybersecurity market size projected to increase from $76 billion in 2023 to $158 billion by 2026, CrowdStrike looks like a strong candidate to double in under five years. The only hesitation I have with CrowdStrike is its premium valuation from a price-to-sales perspective.
CRWD PS Ratio data by YCharts
At nearly 16 times sales, CrowdStrike has high expectations already baked into the stock. But with a massive market opportunity and strong growth, I don't see an issue with CrowdStrike attaining its goals.
PayPal
There is another way to be a successful investment besides growth. Value investing is when someone buys a stock when it's cheap in order to sell it once the asset has reached a reasonable valuation level. By identifying undervalued stocks with strong financials, investors can beat the market this way, too.
PayPal (PYPL 2.90%) is a former growth stock that has fallen into value investing territory. The stock trades for a dirt-cheap 14 times trailing and 10 times forward earnings. Compared to the S&P 500's 25 times trailing and 18 times forward earnings, it's way cheaper than the market.
While PayPal isn't producing market-crushing growth anymore, it grew revenue at a respectable 7% pace in Q2 to $7.3 billion and substantially increased its earnings per share from a $0.29 loss last year to a $0.92 profit this year. Management also took advantage of its lower stock price and repurchased $1.5 billion in shares, or about 2% of the entire company. Most companies can only repurchase 2% of the company in an entire year, let alone a quarter, so this trend should also help PayPal to beat the market.
PayPal may not be the fastest-growing business, but its ridiculous undervaluation and steady growth should get more respect from Wall Street. When this happens, don't be surprised if PayPal returns to market-average valuation, which would result in about a double.
