Growth investing can seem deceptively simple on the surface. In a nutshell, it involves identifying a company growing faster than the rest of the market, then betting that someone else will be willing to pay more for each dollar of earnings it generates in the future.
The challenge isn’t finding these companies. Numerous financial websites, such as data provider Finviz, offer free screeners that can filter out these stocks. Setting parameters like a market capitalization of $10 billion or more and a three-year sales growth rate of at least 15% will yield plenty of candidates.
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“For extra spice, screen for a dividend yield of under 1%, as these companies are plowing cash back into the engine,” explains Michael Ashley Schulman, partner and chief investment officer at Running Point Capital Advisors. “The resulting list is surprisingly short and mostly tech-heavy, which tells you where the secular growth rivers flow.”
The real difficulty is twofold: Investors need confidence in both the durability of that sales growth and the likelihood that future investors will be willing to pay more per dollar of the company’s earnings. Achieving this consistently is harder than it sounds.
Many companies with strong growth rates have benefited from breakthroughs such as blockbuster weight-loss drugs or surging demand for artificial intelligence-driven semiconductors. But initial success doesn’t guarantee sustained growth, which also depends on factors like the total addressable market, overcoming regulatory roadblocks and the ability to innovate over time.
When you buy a stock, you’re also paying a multiple for the earnings you believe it will produce tomorrow. That estimate can be wrong, especially when “animal spirits” are in full effect and investor hype bids prices up well beyond fundamentals. Even promising technologies can lead to losses if sentiment sours and multiples contract.
With that in mind, here’s a look at seven blue-chip stocks that have grown their sales at an average rate of 15% or more over the past three years:
| Stock | Market Capitalization | 3-year Revenue Growth |
| Nvidia Corp. (ticker: NVDA) | $4.4 trillion | 69.3% |
| Broadcom Inc. (AVGO) | $1.4 trillion | 23.4% |
| ServiceNow Inc. (NOW) | $175 billion | 23.1% |
| Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) | $565 billion | 16.7% |
| Tesla Inc. (TSLA) | $1.1 trillion | 22.0% |
| Axon Enterprise Inc. (AXON) | $63 billion | 34.1% |
| Shopify Inc. (SHOP) | $193 billion | 24.4% |
Nvidia Corp. (NVDA)
“With three- and five-year sales [compound annual growth rates] of approximately 69% and 64% respectively, and year-over-year revenue still juiced by triple-digit gains, Nvidia remains the market’s AI arms dealer,” Schulman says. “Over 70% of the float is held by institutions, so retail buyers are effectively surfing behind a very large yacht.” As of August, Nvidia is once again the most valuable publicly traded company on U.S. exchanges.
Some of Wall Street’s most prominent tech bulls have expressed confidence in continued momentum from Nvidia. Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities has projected a $5 trillion market capitalization, up from about $4.4 trillion today. Tom Lee of Fundstrat has also suggested that Nvidia holding the top spot in the S&P 500 is now the new status quo. Shares of Nvidia are currently up 35.6% year to date through Aug. 11.
Broadcom Inc. (AVGO)
“Broadcom’s three-year sales growth clocks in north of 23%, and its software roll-ups provide annuity-like cash flows that make value managers feel seen,” Schulman says. “Nibbling here allows you to bet on AI infrastructure, and fundamentals-based managers love the juicy operating margins.” The company currently pays a 0.8% dividend yield, slightly above the technology sector’s average of 0.7%
Broadcom is less a pure-play bet on chipmaking prowess and more of a hybrid semiconductor and enterprise software company. This shift was driven in part by its November 2023 acquisition of VMware, which gave Broadcom increased cloud computing and virtualization capabilities. VMware’s technology helps businesses run multiple operating systems and applications on a single server.
ServiceNow Inc. (NOW)
“ServiceNow slips under some radars because it lives in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) niche, but its three- and five-year sales growth of about 23% and 26% put it squarely in the club,” Schulman says. “Some may consider rotating out of the ‘Magnificent Seven‘ and into stocks like NOW that monetize AI through efficiency rather than silicon.” So far in 2025, shares of ServiceNow are down 19.2% through Aug. 11.
ServiceNow falls into the same “application software” industry group as Salesforce Inc. (CRM) and Adobe Inc. (ADBE) but performs a very different task. While Salesforce specializes in customer relationship management tools and Adobe focuses on creative and digital media software, ServiceNow is more of a workflow automation platform, digitizing processes such as IT service management and HR onboarding.
[SEE: 8 Quantum Computing Stocks to Buy in 2025]
Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY)
“Sometimes you have to slim down to find growth outside of tech, and that’s the case with Eli Lilly, where weight-loss drugs have led to heavyweight sales,” Schulman says. “2024 revenue jumped 32% to $45 billion as Mounjaro and Zepbound became the iPhones of endocrinology, with 85% gross margins.” The stock has nonetheless been beaten down like much of the pharma sector year to date, with a 17.4% loss through Aug. 11.
Much of the drop came in early August after earnings, when shares fell on disappointing results for its experimental anti-obesity pill orforglipron. While the drug proved effective, the amount of weight that trial participants lost was below analyst expectations. The company also faces competition from Viking Therapeutics Inc. (VKTX), which is currently in phase 3 clinical trials for VK2735, its GLP-1/GIP agonist.
Tesla Inc. (TSLA)
“Separating Tesla from its CEO, Elon Musk, the company is an absolute market leader in the electric vehicle market,” says Henry Yoshida, senior vice president at Retired.com. Tesla is the worst-performing member of the Magnificent Seven in 2025, down 16% as sales in Europe decline, government incentives pause in Canada and the company reported a 12% year-over-year revenue drop in its 2025 second-quarter earnings.
Despite these setbacks, Tesla bulls remain confident. “Elon’s focus on reinvesting profits into research and development could lead to Tesla successfully entering other massively large markets over the next several years as well,” Yoshida says. “One area I particularly like is Tesla’s Optimus division, which is developing humanoid robots.” The company is also aggressively scaling up robotaxi operations.
Axon Enterprise Inc. (AXON)
Axon Enterprise, maker of the Taser, has quietly grown into a $63 billion defense industry dark horse through its ecosystem lock-in. Much like how Apple moved beyond the iPod, the real moneymaker for Axon is no longer the Taser, but its suite of body cameras and cloud-based platforms that law enforcement agencies use to store, manage and share digital evidence.
Axon’s second-quarter 2025 results reinforced this model, with earnings per share of $2.12 crushing analyst expectations of $1.46, and revenue of $669 million topping the $640 million consensus. The company is now expanding into additional product categories, including AI and drones. Bank of America Corp. (BAC) analysts recently assigned Axon an “buy” rating with a $1,000 price target.
Shopify Inc. (SHOP)
The U.S. is known for its tech sector dominance, while Canada’s stock market is largely driven by financials and energy. However, it does have a few heavyweight tech names. Chief among them is Shopify, which recently surpassed the Royal Bank of Canada (RY) to become the most valuable company in the S&P/TSX 60 index. The stock is dual-listed on the Nasdaq, making it accessible to U.S. investors.
While President Donald Trump’s on-and-off tariffs have been a headwind for most manufacturing and discretionary retail companies, Shopify’s e-commerce model has avoided the impact. Shares recently jumped 21% after second-quarter earnings beat expectations and the company issued strong revenue growth guidance, with management noting that tariff concerns had no effect on demand.
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7 Blue-Chip Stocks Growing More Than 15% a Year originally appeared on usnews.com
