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Growth stocks: Find the top growth stocks for 2026!

Buy securities cheaply, wait for strong growth and sell them later at a high price. That is the goal of most investors. With Growth Aktien They do this particularly well because they are characterized by enormous price gains. However, finding such titles is anything but easy! 

Reason enough to answer important questions about these highly sought-after companies: What are growth stocks, why are they in such demand and how do you even find stocks with such growth potential?

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The most important in a nutshell

  • Growth stocks are characterized by disproportionately high growth and are therefore very lucrative
  • Nicht alle Titel können das Wachstumspotenzial auch ausschöpfen. Es kann dadurch zu enttäuschten Erwartungen und Renditeeinbußen kommen
  • Wer auf solche Wertpapiere setzt, sollte daher auf gute Diversifikation achten oder das Vorgehen mit anderen Strategien kombinieren

Was sind Growth Aktien?

It doesn't always have to be risky Day trading with shares, Swing trading strategies or similar forms of trade. Traditional investment in attractive securities is still one of the most effective ways to increase your wealth!

The aim is to, Discovering companies with the greatest possible increase in value. And hardly any other asset class offers more of this than growth stocks! They are characterized by growth that is significantly above the competition (or is expected to be in the future): 

  • Growth shares are expected to generate particularly strong growth in the future.
  • As a rule, companies do not pay dividends, but use their income for further growth. 
  • Investors who invest early in such growth stocks can easily multiply their capital.
  • Companies that have increased their value tenfold are regarded as Tenbagger labeled. 
  • Many supposed growth stocks never realize their potential. Growth strategies are therefore always associated with risks. 

Originally, growth stocks were only understood to be companies whose profits rose continuously and at an above-average rate. However, the term has changed since around the turn of the millennium: Today, growth stocks are understood to mean companies whose profits are growing strongly could

Attention!

Growth stocks are stocks that could potentially experience strong growth. This is a risky bet that can be very rewarding if successful, but can also go wrong!

The growth stocks are generally no bargainsTheir status gets around quickly or becomes visible through strong profit growth. Numerous investors enter the market and drive up the price. 

A growth stock that is cheap/undervalued on the stock market is referred to as a “value growth stock”. It combines all the positive characteristics. Such companies are every investor's dream, but are also correspondingly rare. 

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Growth Aktien: Treiber der Aktienmärkte

Growth stocks rightly have the reputation of being enormous growth drivers. This is shown, among other things, by a large-scale Studie at the W.P. Carey School of Business, which was published in the “Financial Analysts Journal”: 

  • Professor Hendrick Bessembinder and colleagues investigated the Performance von 64.000 Stocks über einen Zeitraum von 30 Jahren (1990 bis 2020). 
  • Diese Zahlen compared them with short-term bonds der US-Treasury with a term of one month. They are considered to be particularly stable, but not necessarily profitable investments.
  • In doing so, they pursued the simple question, ob sich das zusätzliche Risiko von Aktien überhaupt lohnt. 

Das Ergebnis ist enorm interessant, aber für viele Anleger auch ernüchternd: 

55 % of US shares and 57 % the title from the rest of the world schneiden schlechter ab als die Staatsanleihen. Im direkten Vergleich mit den Treasury-Bonds lohnen sich die Mehrzahl der Wertpapiere also nicht. 

Wie kann es jedoch sein, dass mehr als die Hälfte aller Unternehmen so schlechte Ergebnisse liefern, die Börsen aber dennoch ein starkes Wachstum aufweisen? After all, the S&P 500 recorded average gains of 10 % per year over the same 30-year period! 

Die Antwort ist simpel: 

Ein sehr kleiner Anteil von Growth Aktien erzeugt gewaltiges Wachstum und treibt den gesamten Markt an. 

  • Die Studie untersuchte einen Zeitraum von 30 Jahren, in dem weltweite Gewinne von 75 Billionen US-Dollar could be generated. 
  • This entire amount arose by only 2.4 % of the companies. This corresponds to 1,526 of the 64,000 companies surveyed! 
  • The remaining 97.6 % generated smaller losses and gains, which are roughly balanced overall. 

If the Growth Aktien also abziehen, hätten die Aktienmärkte in den vergangenen 30 Jahren keine Gewinne erzeugt. Growth stocks can therefore be confidently described as the driving force behind the stock markets!

These findings are consistent with another review by Eric Crittenden and Cole Wilcox. In their work “The Capitalism-Distribution” (“The Capitalism Distribution - Observations of individual common stock returns 1983-2006” Eric Crittenden, Cole Wilxoc, 2006) the authors show that only a small number of shares are responsible for the gains of a large index. 

They take a close look at the Russell 3000. This index is based on market capitalization, meaning that the largest companies also account for the largest share. 

In the period under review from 1983 to 2006 all gains in the index can be attributed to only 25 % of the shares. The remaining 75 % generated a total of zero profit!

Line chart of index gains from 1983 to 2006; 75 % of growth stocks had 0 % return, while 25 % were responsible for all gains. X-axis: number of shares, Y-axis: percentage gain.
Although the Russell 3000 Index has recorded strong growth over 23 years, it has been driven by only 25 % of the stocks it contains!

The importance of diversification for shares with growth potential 

In the aforementioned study, the researchers attempt to categorize their findings and make them useful for investors. Their central message: Investors should be aware of the imbalance between stocks and take this into account when making their investment decisions. 

Several exciting findings on growth stocks can be derived from this: 

  1. Stock market forecasts are often incorrect: We keep hearing that investors can expect 7 to 10 % returns on the stock market. In reality, however, these figures are only an average of thousands of shares and are based on the extremely good results of the 2.4 % Growth shares. 

The remaining 97.6 % generate little or no profit. Only investors who catch growth stocks can therefore hope for the promised 7 to 10 % long-term return. 

  1. Increase the chance of a hit: This means that, in purely mathematical terms, only around one of 41 listed companies has such success and is a real growth stock. Of course, we do not know in advance which company will show such growth. Sufficient diversification is therefore the best way to catch these stocks. 
  1. Finding a healthy balance: Simply buying as many stocks as possible is not a sensible solution. Too much diversification can reduce your return, as you are no longer able to manage all stocks sensibly. A healthy middle ground is therefore ideal. You should focus on several potential growth stocks in order to achieve an ideal result. 

Durch eine höhere Anzahl an Wertpapieren in Ihrem Portfolio steigt auch die Wahrscheinlichkeit, die besonders lukrativen Titel zu entdecken. Das bedeutet jedoch nicht, dass sie wahllos Anteile an Firmen aufkaufen sollten; auch bei einem umfangreichen Sortiment ist die vorherige Analyse ein wichtiger Erfolgsfaktor!

Risks of growth stocks 

Growth shares are extremely attractive to investors. No wonder, as they promise explosive growth! Many market participants are therefore feverishly searching for such stocks. This quickly leads to hypes or the formation of bubbles

  • The bursting of the dotcom bubble at the end of the 1990s is probably the best-known example of the fact that supposed growth stocks do not always deliver what they promise. 
  • The companies in this Internet hype were assumed to have gigantic profit prospects, although in some cases it was not even clear what the business model looked like. 
  • When it became clear that these were not genuine growth stocks, the rapid sell-off triggered a crash. 

By contrast, other growth stocks were able to meet or even significantly exceed investors' expectations. These include companies such as Apple, Tesla and NVIDIA. They were labeled as growth stocks early on and actually showed explosive increases in value.

The AI hype of the 2020s is now threatening to create another bubbleThe parallels with the dotcom bubble cannot be dismissed. Investors should therefore always exercise caution with alleged growth stocks and ensure that your own portfolio is well diversified.  

If an apparent growth stock turns out to be a loser, there is not only the threat of disappointment (the hoped-for profits do not materialize), but also active danger: 

  • Growth stocks often have a Very high volatility and lose, for example, during a Stock market crashes or bear market disproportionately increase in value
  • As soon as it becomes clear that the hoped-for growth will not materialize, investors dump the shares in droves. This leads to massive price slumps. 
  • In some cases, failed growth stocks can slide into insolvency. Your investment is therefore exposed to considerable risks.
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Find growth stocks: Tenbagger potential in 2026

Every investor wants shares that ideally rise sharply in value immediately after purchase. The internet offers countless guides to help us find such growth stocks. 

But the unpleasant truth is this: There is no universally valid key figure, indicator or source of information with which we can reliably identify growth stocks!

Our best chance is to use multiple numbers, analyst opinions and our common sense. 

These criteria help to find stocks with growth potential

You should therefore carry out the necessary due diligence yourself and check the alleged growth stocks yourself. The following key figures can help: 

1. Geschätztes Wachstum des Gewinns je Aktie über fünf Jahre

Growth forecasts are an exciting area for investors looking for growth stocks: 

  • Earnings per share, or EPS, is a standard indicator for share analysis. A stock corporation is obliged to publish it at the end of the year. 
  • EPS is already very useful in itself and helps to assess the earnings power of a company. For the growth stock search, however, the Prognosen der EPS-Entwicklung interessant! 
  • Verschiedene Analysten und Institutionen befassen sich mit der zu erwartenden Entwicklung des Aktiengewinns. Aus ihren Meinungen bildet man einen Durchschnittswert. 

Dabei hat sich ein Zeitraum von fünf Jahren proven. You can find this key figure under names such as “share profit forecast” or “EPS growth next five years” on various financial portals. A Growth of more than 5 % per year may indicate a suitable company. 

2. Umsatzwachstum der vergangenen fünf Jahre

Also steigende Umsätze are an important indication. This is because steadily increasing sales figures show that this could indeed be a growth stock. 

  • In contrast to earnings per share, no long-term forecast is generally available for sales figures.
  • Analysts usually only give their expectations for the next one to two quarters, i.e. three to six months. For the search nutzt man daher lieber historische Daten. 
  • A Sales growth of 25 % or more in the past five years has proven to be a good indicator. 

You can also find this key figure on various financial portals or in the companies' annual reports and investor relations pages. 

3. hardly helpful: the P/E ratio

Die bekannteste und am häufigsten betrachtete Kennzahl ist bei der Wertpapieranalyse zweifellos das Kurs-Gewinn-Verhältnis KGV. It compares the current share price with the earnings per share. 

However, the P/E ratio is of little use in the search for growth stocks: Traders buy potential growth stocks in large numbers. This demand raises stock market prices, but not profits, and thus results in quite high P/E ratios. The companies appear overvalued and expensive. 

The Blick auf das Kurs-Gewinn-Verhältnis hilft uns bei Growth Stocks kaum weiter, da diese Titel aufgrund der hohen Nachfrage bereits sehr teuer sind. Wir sehen daher oft geradezu absurd hohe Werte, die für die Analyse nicht verwendbar sind. 

CANSLIM method

In the 1990s, US investor William O'Neil developed a method for the early discovery of growth stocks. The method is very popular among investors and has been voted the best-performing investment strategy by the American Association of Individual Investors for eleven years in a row. 

The seven letters of the CANSLIM strategy each represent an aspect to be analyzed: 

  1. C = Current Quarterly Earnings. The last quarterly sales per share should be at least 25 % above the same quarter of the previous year. If sales growth has accelerated in the last three quarters, this is an additional positive sign. 
  2. A = Annual Earnings Growth. Annual sales growth should be at least 25 % in the past three years. The annual return on equity should be at least 17 %. 
  3. N = New product or service. The company should be characterized by continuous innovation and further development, as this is the only way it can outperform the competition in the long term. 
  4. S = Supply and Demand. The shares should experience solid demand on the stock market, especially in phases of price increases. 
  5. L = Leader or Laggard. It is recommended to buy leading companies in the respective sector. If there is no clear frontrunner, key figures such as the “Relative Price Strength Rating” can help to identify it. 
  6. I = Institutional Sponsorship. Promising companies should be held by several institutional investors (banks, investment funds, etc.). This can be determined using the “attribution/distribution” indicator, for example.
  7. M = Market Direction. Here are Bull and bear on the stock market analyzed: The market should be in a safe uptrend before buying a potential growth stock. 

In addition, with the CANSLIM method, positions are closed without exception in the event of a loss of 7 %. An early exit in the event of an unsuccessful growth candidate is extremely important in order to limit the risks of growth strategies. 

The strength of the method is the combination of technical analysis and Fundamental analysis. The early exit in the event of losses also plays an important role and could explain the popularity of the strategy.

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Fazit: Growth Aktien sind lukrativ, aber schwer zu finden

Growth stocks promise above-average growth and can multiply their value in a short space of time. However, there is no guarantee of this, and in the event of failure, there is a risk of disappointment for investors. 

Such growth stocks are the growth drivers of the stock markets and are correspondingly popular. Numerous lists promise to contain the upcoming super stocks. However, the actual accuracy of such recommendations is very low. 

There is therefore no way around a personal analysis. Possible criteria for growth stocks are 

  • Estimated sales growth per share over 5 years
  • Sales growth over the last 5 years

The “CANSLIM” method also provides comprehensive instructions for analyzing shares. Each letter stands for a qualitative or quantitative consideration. 

If you want to bet on such growth stocks, you should choose a healthy diversification in your Equity portfolio aim for. This not only increases their chances of finding a growth stock, but can also reduce their risk. 

This is because growth companies are considered to be particularly volatile: they record high gains during upward phases, but also lose ground during the next downward trend or Stock market crash massively in value. 

FAQ: Frequently asked questions about Growth Shares

What are examples of growth stocks?

Growth stocks are recording enormous gains and are therefore hugely lucrative. Amazon, Apple, Nvidia and Netflix are typical examples. Interesting: Monster Beverage recently recorded the highest growth rates in the S&P 500 with 192,000 %!

How do I find growth stocks?

Traditional ratios such as P/E or P/S ratios are largely unsuitable, as companies are often already very expensive. Instead, it is worth looking at earnings forecasts per share (5 years) and historical sales growth (also 5 years) to find growth stocks.

What are growth companies?

Companies that are experiencing particularly strong and rapid growth. They are usually active in trend areas and often benefit from new, equally fast-growing trends. Although not all such shares are successful, they can be worthwhile investments.

What is the difference between value and growth stocks?

Growth stocks have enormous potential and are therefore highly sought after. Value shares, on the other hand, have already reached their potential. They are considered high quality, safe and only show low growth. Both types can be very expensive.

Philipp Gilg with short, light-colored hair and a beard wears a light blue button-down shirt. He stands in front of a pane of glass and looks into the camera.
Philipp Gilg

Philipp Gilg is a freelance SEO expert and financial editor. He regularly publishes SEO-optimized articles about shares, trading, options and investing on the CapTrader blog. He also works with well-known financial influencers and supports them in gaining organic reach on Google. He developed a great passion for the stock market at a young age, trading his first shares at the age of 16. As a result, he now has years of experience and expertise in this area.

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