By Philip van Doorn
Stocks passing the screen have 12-month upside potential of up to 33% implied by consensus price targets
Growth stocks can be expensive, but if you are trying to be aggressive with a portion of your investment portfolio, you often have to pay a premium for the privilege.
For example, shares of Intuit Inc. (INTU), the developer of TurboTax and QuickBooks software, have traded at an average forward price-to-earnings ratio of 35.4 over the past five years through Friday, according to FactSet. That is based on prices divided by rolling consensus 12-month earnings-per-share estimates among analysts polled by FactSet. In comparison, the S&P 500 SPX has traded at an average weighted forward P/E ratio of 20.3 over the past five years. And for that five-year period, Intuit’s stock has returned 168.5%, compared with a return of 110.6% for the S&P 500, both with dividends reinvested.
So this is an example of a stock for which paying the growth premium has been worthwhile, at least for this five-year period.
Screening the S&P 500 for revenue growth
To set up a new screen of stocks within the S&P 500 expected to grow their businesses most rapidly, let’s begin with a look at expected compound annual growth rates (CAGR) for sales per share from 2025 through 2027. The estimates are weighted by market capitalization, as is the S&P 500 index. The sectors are sorted by expected sales CAGR, with the full index at the bottom:
Sector Two-year estimated sales CAGR through 2027 Forward P/E Forward Price/ sales
Information Technology 7.8% 30.0 8.4
Industrials 6.6% 24.7 2.8
Real Estate 6.5% 17.9 6.3
Communication Services 6.5% 19.7 3.9
Healthcare 6.0% 16.2 1.3
Consumer Discretionary 5.8% 29.3 2.7
Financials 5.3% 16.6 3.5
Utilities 5.1% 18.3 2.7
Materials 4.2% 20.3 2.1
Energy 3.5% 15.1 1.4
Consumer Staples 0.8% 22.5 1.4
S&P 500 5.4% 22.3 3.1
Source: FactSet
The information technology sector is expected to increase revenue most rapidly from 2025 through 2027. It also trades at the highest forward P/E and the highest forward price-to-sales ratio.
So we screened the S&P 500 to list highly rated stocks of companies expected to show high revenue CAGR from 2025 through 2027.
— We trimmed the list to 478 companies covered by at least nine analysts polled by FactSet, for which consensus revenue estimates were available through calendar 2027. The estimates were adjusted by FactSet for any companies whose fiscal reporting periods don’t match the calendar.
— Then we cut the list to 56 companies with expected revenue CAGR from calendar 2025 through calendar 2027 of at least 10.8% – twice the expected sales-per-share CAGR for the full S&P 500.
— To narrow down to a highly rated group of stocks, we pared the screen to 36 rated “buy” or the equivalent by the analysts.
— For many of these favored stocks, the share prices are close to the consensus price targets, or even exceed them. Most analysts set 12-month price targets. So we made one more cut to 15 stocks for which consensus price targets were at least 10% higher than Friday’s closing prices.
Here are the 15 stocks that passed the screen, sorted by expected revenue CAGR:
Company Ticker Two-year estimated sales CAGR through 2027 Forward P/E July 18 price Cons. Price target Implied 12-month upside potential
ServiceNow Inc. NOW 19.2% 52.5 $963.40 $1,100.61 14%
Eli Lilly and Co. LLY 18.4% 29.5 $771.71 $988.17 28%
Trade Desk Inc. Class A TTD 17.8% 81.9 $80.21 $89.15 11%
Insulet Corp. PODD 17.3% 57.6 $284.23 $343.17 21%
First Solar Inc. FSLR 15.9% 9.3 $175.85 $198.15 13%
DexCom Inc. DXCM 15.0% 36.3 $83.89 $100.84 20%
Micron Technology Inc. MU 14.9% 9.7 $114.39 $151.91 33%
Uber Technologies Inc. UBER 14.4% 27.7 $90.59 $100.34 11%
Monolithic Power Systems Inc. MPWR 14.2% 39.1 $725.24 $796.92 10%
Palo Alto Networks Inc. PANW 13.6% 53.5 $195.78 $214.91 10%
Workday Inc. Class A WDAY 13.2% 24.7 $233.06 $298.09 28%
Intuit Inc. INTU 13.0% 32.9 $752.63 $825.31 10%
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. CMG 12.4% 40.4 $53.93 $60.69 13%
Capital One Financial Corp. COF 12.3% 12.1 $218.28 $242.65 11%
Mastercard Inc. MA 12.0% 31.7 $552.66 $630.65 14%
Source: FactSet
Any stock screen is limited to a small amount of information. If you are considering an investment in an individual company, you should do your own research to form your own opinion about how likely that business is to remain competitive over the next decade, at least. One way to begin that process is to click on the tickers for more information.
Read: Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the information available on the MarketWatch quote page
Don’t miss: Only six dividend stocks pass a screen for quality – with yields up to 6.58%
-Philip van Doorn
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07-21-25 2054ET
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