Growth stocks are a great way to buy into a potential market bull run this year, should the Federal Reserve’s rate cuts occur. The Fed has hinted that rates could go down up to three times in 2024 from 5.25% to 5.50%, the highest in 22 years. The markets are now looking to the next Fed meeting in June for more updates.
If the Fed does what is expected and earnings keep going up without the economy going into a slump, the stock market could have a broad-based bull market. Fourteen of the 20 biggest stock markets in the world have already notched record highs this year, with U.S. stocks currently on a $12 trillion rise.
So far, Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and other artificial intelligence (AI) stocks are leading the charge. After slowing down in 2023, Fidelity thinks earnings growth will pick up again in 2024, helping sustain the bull market with more inclusive stock market gains across sectors.
Everyone is buying NVDA stock, but as we shall see, there are solid growth stocks rated a “strong buy,” have double-digit upsides, and have strong sales growth that are up for grabs. These growth stocks include a top e-commerce play with dominant cloud infrastructure, a cybersecurity firm with advanced security solutions, and an ambitious electric vehicle maker rapidly expanding its model line despite financial instability.
Amazon (AMZN)
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) hit a new record high in May, attributable to Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy’s confidence in Amazon’s abilities in generative AI and good Q1 earnings.
The upgraded Amazon Q now allows non-developers to build applications using natural language. AMZN also plans to add creative AI technologies to Alexa and charge a monthly subscription. At the same time, AWS Bedrock AI can now import and access custom AI models.
It’s important that Amazon keep adding to AWS, which accounts for 31% of the global cloud infrastructure market and has a $100 billion annual revenue run rate, more than any other cloud provider. AWS generated 54% of Amazon’s $13.21 billion operational profits in Q4 2023, representing 14% of Amazon’s income.
Moving away from AWS, Amazon has also signed multiple long-term deals with Seattle Kraken hockey games and NBA games to boost its Prime offering.
Overall, on the retail side, Amazon is still getting a big chunk of new spending, and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) experts say that the company is becoming even more competitive.
According to the most recent report, the global e-commerce company made almost $576 billion in net sales, up from $514 billion the previous year, primarily from online retail sales; consensus points to a potential 21% upside.
CrowdStrike Holdings (CRWD)
CrowdStrike Holdings (NASDAQ:CRWD) operates in cybersecurity, an important part of the world economy that will grow by 11% from 2024 to 2028 and reach $273 billion in value by 2028; it holds about a 24% share of the endpoint protection market.
The CrowdStrike Falcon platform continues to bring in new customers, as shown by the 34% year-over-year growth in yearly ongoing income revealed in the most recent earnings.
CrowdStrike’s fourth-quarter 2024 earning-per-share was 95 cents, well over the expert expectation of 82 cents, and revenues were $845 million, higher than the $839 million predicted.
On the product side, CrowdStrike showed off its Falcon Next-Gen SIEM system for the first time at the RSA Conference 2024. CrowdStrike also put out Falcon for Defender, which protects Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Defender setups by constantly looking for risks.
CrowdStrike and Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOG, GOOGL) Google Cloud are also working together more closely to improve AI-based hacking incident response and MDR using Falcon and Mandiant. In addition, CrowdStrike and NinjaOne are working together to offer full computer protection.
CrowdStrike’s revenue for 2024 was around $3 billion, 36% more than in 2023; consensus points to an around 16% upside, enhancing its appeal among growth stocks to buy.
Li Auto (LI)
With 800,000 cars to deliver in 2024, Li Auto (NASDAQ:LI) wants to double the number of cars it delivered last year.
The Chinese new energy vehicle company is also planning to have more than 5,000 supercharging sites online by 2025, spread out across 90% of major highways and 90% of the core urban areas in Tier 4 and more developed towns.
The new L6 SUV from Li Auto is also exciting investors. LI stock went up because the upscale electric SUV starts at $34,500. The price is relatively affordable within the premium electric SUV market, and the new model received over 10,000 orders within 72 hours of debuting.
However, the stock is down 41% because Q1 2024 vehicle sales missed analyst estimates, and its electric SUV launch is delayed until the second half of 2025 due to infrastructure issues.
Analysts, however, expect a turnaround for the first major China EV startup to turn a profit, projecting an upside of 76%, making it can’t miss among growth stocks to buy.
On the date of publication, Faizan Farooque did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
