4 Secular Growth Stock Ideas: Chewy, Amazon, Alphabet, Equinix

Growth stocks have been outperforming value stocks for almost the entire last decade. Yet with stocks at all-time highs, many growth stocks now have stretched valuations.

Those steep earnings and sales multiples aren’t necessarily a problem as long as the companies keep delivering the growth for which investors are looking. If the growth slows down, growth stocks can take a big hit.

For example, former growth stock Under Armour Inc UAA saw its growth numbers start to slump back in 2016, and its stock ultimately dropped from above $54 to as low as $11.40 by late 2017.

Secular growth stocks are a rare breed of companies that analysts say will continue growing forever. Here are four secular growth stocks that BofA Securities analysts love.

Amazon.cm, Inc AMZN

Not only is Amazon a secular growth stock, it is a market leader in two of the largest secular growth markets in the world today. Amazon is the market leader in e-commerce, a secular growth theme that will likely continue to play out for decades. It is also the market leader in cloud services, another business that will continue to grow as long as the world keeps producing more data.

Amazon is still in the early stages of the retail transition from offline to online, and Amazon’s AWS cloud revenue growth could even accelerate this year as IT spending recovers post-pandemic, said BofA analyst Justin Post. 

BofA Securities has a Buy rating and $4,150 price target for AMZN stock.

Alphabet, Inc GOOG GOOGL

Like Amazon, Alphabet has a basket of secular growth businesses. Its online advertising business and YouTube video platform are unrivaled, and global internet and smartphone usage will likely continue to rise indefinitely.

In addition, Google Cloud gives Alphabet exposure to the cloud business, while Waymo gives Alphabet exposure to next-generation auto technology.

Post said investors shouldn’t worry too much about Google’s recent decision to remove support for third-party cookies from the Chrome browser over the next year.

The decision could make Google’s “privacy sandbox” even more valuable for app developers, the analyst said.

BofA has a Buy rating and $2,440 price target for Alphabet stock.

Chewy Inc CHWY

In the company’s fiscal third quarter, Chewy reported 44.9% revenue growth and 58.4% net income growth. It’s unlikely the company will maintain that growth rate forever, but the online pet supply business is certainly on a secular growth track.

Analyst Nat Schindler said credit card data so far in 2021 suggests Chewy’s 2020 momentum is spilling over into at least the first half of this year.

In addition to growing earnings and revenue, the analyst said Chewy is well-positioned to grow its market share, its margins and its pet pharmaceutical sales.

BofA Securities has a Buy rating on Chewy with a $133 price target.

Equinix Inc EQIX

Equinix is the largest data center operator in the world. Big data is a major secular growth theme, and Equinix grew its revenue by 8.7% in 2020.

Equinix should benefit from growing demand for network-neutral colocation, said BofA analyst Michael Funk.

Colocation demand should continue to grow alongside enterprise data usage over time. In addition to the stock’s growth opportunity, Funk said there is an extremely high technical barrier to entry in the data center market, limiting potential future competition for Equinix.

BofA Securities has a Buy rating on Equinix with an $865 price target.