If you’ve heard the term “growth stocks” before, there’s a good chance that it was referring to large technology companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla or Alphabet.
These are the five most heavily weighted components of the S&P 500 index, so they have an outsized influence on the overall movement of the stock market.
However, not all growth stocks are technology stocks. Over the last decade, tech stocks have performed particularly well, leading the S&P 500 to weight them more heavily. But growth stocks can be in the health care sector, the financial sector or any other sector. What defines them is, well, growth.
Growth stocks are stocks of companies whose revenue is growing faster than average. Growth stocks typically don’t pay dividends, reinvesting profits into their growth instead. Investors buy growth stocks with the hope share prices will rise quickly.
Growth stocks are often contrasted with income stocks, which investors buy for their consistent dividend payments, and value stocks, which investors buy in the hope that their prices will rebound from a recent setback.
Best-performing growth stocks
Below is a list of the 7 top U.S.-listed growth stocks, ordered by one-year performance. To compile this list, we take into account the growth rates of revenue and earnings over the past year and prior year, as well as price-to-earnings ratios and dividend yield over the past year.
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The best-performing growth stock by one-year return is Sandisk Corp (SNDK), which is up 3,349.01%. |
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Ticker |
Company |
Performance (Year) |
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SNDK |
Sandisk Corp |
3349.01% |
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LITE |
Lumentum Holdings Inc |
1266.19% |
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MRAM |
Everspin Technologies Inc |
670.78% |
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CIEN |
CIENA Corp |
615.93% |
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SCZM |
Santacruz Silver Mining Ltd |
567.36% |
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TSEM |
Tower Semiconductor Ltd |
549.60% |
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ASYS |
Amtech Systems Inc |
499.55% |
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Source: Finviz. Data is current as of May 13, 2026 and is intended for informational purposes only. |
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Brokerage firms |
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on Charles Schwab’s website |
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How to find growth stocks
It can be helpful to do some holistic research when trying to identify potential growth stocks: What are the larger market trends? What industries do you predict will go through significant periods of growth over the next few months or years?
A great example of this type of market growth is the AI industry. Over the last few years, AI technology has become widespread, and many AI stocks have massively increased in value. But the problem with investing in any singular stock is that you have to see those trends coming before they happen — and people, even professional investors — are statistically unlikely to accurately predict the future.
To easily find growth stocks with a screener, filter for high earnings per share (EPS) growth and revenue growth (sometimes called sales growth). You can also screen for high price-earnings (PE) ratios and non-dividend-paying stocks — as we did above — to further refine your search to growth stocks that have share price momentum and are aggressively reinvesting money in their own growth.
Should you buy growth stocks?
That depends on you and your investing goals. The stocks above may be beating the market right now, but that doesn’t mean that you should go all-in on them. Past performance does not predict future performance, and picking individual stocks can be a risky business.
The S&P 500 index, which contains roughly 500 of the largest publicly traded companies in the U.S., has returned an average of about 10% per year since 1926. That makes it a powerful tool for compounding wealth over the long term. However, it’s worth emphasizing that 10% is the average annual return of the index. In some years, the index does much better than that, but in other years, it does much worse.
Plus, the S&P 500 index features several of the growth stocks we mention here.
Other investors harness the power of index funds and individual stocks with the “90/10 rule.” They invest no more than 10% of their portfolios in individual stocks and keep the rest in low-cost index funds.
Growth stocks vs. dividend stocks
One of the biggest differences between growth stocks and dividend stocks is that growth stock companies devote all their extra income to growing their business, which can increase the value of your stock, whereas dividend stock companies take their extra income and pay it out to investors in the form of dividends.
The author owned Alphabet stock at the time of publication.