Growth is oxygen. But when it evaporates, the consequences can be severe - ask anyone who bought Cisco in the Dot-Com Bubble or newer investors who lived through the 2020 to 2022 COVID cycle.
Luckily for you, our job at StockStory is to help you avoid short-term fads by pointing you toward high-quality businesses that can generate sustainable long-term growth. Keeping that in mind, here are two growth stocks expanding their competitive advantages and one that could be down big.
One Growth Stock to Sell:
Affirm (AFRM)
One-Year Revenue Growth: +32.1%
Founded by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin with a mission to create honest financial products, Affirm (NASDAQ: AFRM) provides a payment network that allows consumers to make purchases and pay for them over time with transparent, flexible installment loans.
Why Does AFRM Give Us Pause?
- Push for growth has led to negative returns on capital, signaling value destruction
- 6× net-debt-to-EBITDA ratio shows it’s overleveraged and increases the probability of shareholder dilution if things turn unexpectedly
At $76.33 per share, Affirm trades at 20.7x forward P/E. Dive into our free research report to see why there are better opportunities than AFRM.
Two Growth Stocks to Buy:
monday.com (MNDY)
One-Year Revenue Growth: +25.4%
With its colorful interface of boards, columns, and automation that replaced the chaos of spreadsheets, monday.com (NASDAQ: MNDY) is a cloud-based work operating system that helps teams manage projects, track tasks, and streamline workflows through customizable interfaces.
Why Will MNDY Outperform?
- ARR growth averaged 25.5% over the last year, showing customers are willing to take multi-year bets on its software
- Software is difficult to replicate at scale and leads to a best-in-class gross margin of 89.1%
- Well-designed software integrates seamlessly with other workflows, enabling swift payback periods on marketing expenses and customer growth at scale
monday.com’s stock price of $67.48 implies a valuation ratio of 2.3x forward price-to-sales. Is now a good time to buy? Find out in our full research report, it’s free.
Shift4 (FOUR)
One-Year Revenue Growth: +28.3%
Starting as a payment gateway provider in 1999 and now processing over $200 billion in annual payment volume, Shift4 Payments (NYSE: FOUR) provides integrated payment processing solutions and software that help businesses accept and manage transactions across in-store, online, and mobile channels.
Why Should You Buy FOUR?
- Annual revenue growth of 27.8% over the last two years was superb and indicates its market share increased during this cycle
- Performance over the past two years shows its incremental sales were extremely profitable, as its annual earnings per share growth of 34.1% outpaced its revenue gains
- Stellar return on equity showcases management’s ability to surface highly profitable business ventures
Shift4 is trading at $44.13 per share, or 7.7x forward P/E. Is now the time to initiate a position? See for yourself in our full research report, it’s free.
High-Quality Stocks for All Market Conditions
ONE MORE THING: Top 5 Growth Stocks. The biggest stock winners almost always had one thing in common before they ran. Revenue growing like crazy. Meta. CrowdStrike. Broadcom. Our AI flagged all three. They returned 315%, 314%, and 455%, respectively.
Find out which 5 stocks it’s flagging this month — FREE. Get Our Top 5 Growth Stocks for Free HERE.
Stocks that made our list in 2020 include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+1,326% between June 2020 and June 2025) as well as under-the-radar businesses like the once-small-cap company Comfort Systems (+782% five-year return). Find your next big winner with StockStory today.
