In 2022, increasing rates devastated hypergrowth stocks and drove investors toward safer alternatives. Many of those equities recovered last year as interest rates stabilized. Investors may be weary of chasing that gain as key indices hit record highs. I still recommend buying shares of high-growth market leaders. The three popular stocks I recommend are Nu Holdings (NYSE: NU), Duolingo (NASDAQ: DUOL), and CrowdStrike.
1. Nu Holdings Brazilian, Mexican, and Colombian customers use Nu Holdings' digital bank. It had 93.9 million customers in 2023, up from 54 million two years earlier. It capitalizes on Latin America's expanding revenue and internet penetration by being an online-only bank.
Nu offers credit cards, payment services, business loans, investment tools, insurance, and digital checking and savings accounts. That ecosystem is sticky: Customers utilize four items on average.
Nu's adjusted net income rose 488% to $1.2 billion in 2023. As it cross-sells additional services, grows its user base, enters more Latin American markets, and benefits from historically high interest rates, analysts anticipate its adjusted earnings to climb 64% in 2024 and 61% in 2025. High growth rates for a stock trading at 27 times forecast earnings suggest Nu has potential to grow as more unbanked Latin Americans sign up for its services.
2. Duolingo Duolingo's app is the most downloaded online learning app. Online courses for more than 40 languages are its specialty, but it also offers an English competency exam and phonics, arithmetic, and music apps.
Gamifying education software with jewels and awards disturbed it in recent years. It removed advertisements and added benefits for premium users. It uses generative AI techniques to accelerate course creation and hopes to profit from the AI market's growth.
Duolingo had 88.4 million MAUs at the end of 2023, up 46% from the year before. In 2022, it lost $60 million, but in 2023, it made $16 million. Revenue jumped 44% to $531 million. As it adds users, analysts predict sales and adjusted earnings to climb 37% and 257% in 2024. Revenue and earnings should climb 27% and 86% in 2025.
Duolingo's stock is expensive at 132 times forecast earnings, but its quick growth, rising profits, and online education industry dominance may justify it.
3. CrowdStrike Many cybersecurity organizations use on-site appliances, but this is expensive, takes up a lot of space, requires ongoing maintenance, and is hard to scale as an organization grows. CrowdStrike's cloud-native Falcon technology solves those concerns without on-site equipment.
That disruptive attitude made it grow like a weed. Revenue grew 36% to $3.06 billion in fiscal 2024 (which ended this January), and it forecasts 28% to 31% growth in fiscal 2025. Analysts predict fiscal 2026 sales growth of 27%.
It attributes its strong performance in a tough macro environment to market share gains, government sector expansion, and generative AI enhancements for its extended detection and response (XDR) platform. It's also cross-selling more services: 43% of its clients had adopted at least six cloud-based modules (up from four earlier), compared to 39% at the end of fiscal 2023.
CrowdStrike has been profitable GAAP in each quarter of fiscal 2024. Analysts predict 27% and 25% adjusted EPS growth in fiscal 2025 and 2026. At 81 times forward earnings, the stock is expensive, yet it's a top cybersecurity play.
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