I once bought furniture, with the owner of the store personally helping me. After I commented about the relatively attractive prices, he replied: "I want to get rich. But I want to get rich slow."
Some investors have a similar philosophy. Making money over a long time is perfectly fine with them. On the other hand, there are also investors who have a burning desire for huge gains over a much shorter period.
There are three things investors in the latter category need:
- Enough up-front money to invest.
- A high tolerance for risk.
- The right stocks to buy.
You'll have to handle the first two items on your own. I'll try to help with the third prerequisite. If you've got $10,000 to invest and can stomach high levels of volatility, here are three growth stocks that could make you a fast fortune.
Image source: Getty Images.
Fastly: A tremendous edge
I can't think of many better stocks to buy on the dip than Fastly (FSLY 3.54%). After skyrocketing more than 800% in early July from its low in March, the tech stock has pulled back more than 20%. But the opportunities for Fastly remain unchanged.
The company focuses on two related markets -- content delivery networks (CDNs) and edge computing (processing at the edge of the cloud where organizations' networks connect to the cloud). The end goal for both CDNs and edge computing is to accelerate the speed users can access information over the internet. Fastly's technology delivers on this need for speed. The company recently announced that it achieved a key milestone of 100 terabits per second of connected edge capacity.
There's one major knock against Fastly. The company's sizzling growth this year has given it a market cap of more than $8 billion. That's a steep valuation considering that Fastly isn't profitable yet and made only $63 million in sales in the first quarter.
But Fastly is going after a total combined market in CDN and edge computing that's close to $35 billion. The market should continue to grow thanks to increased e-commerce, online gaming, and TV streaming. Fastly only has to capture a relatively small market share to be a much bigger winner than it already is.
Guardant Health: The DNA of a monster stock
Advances in genetic research offer a whole lot more than just letting you know more about your ancestry. One exciting breakthrough offers the potential to revolutionize the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. And the company standing front and center in this arena is Guardant Health (GH 1.17%).
What is this big breakthrough? Liquid biopsies. They're blood tests that can detect DNA fragments broken off from cancer cells. Guardant Health's revenue has soared thanks to the rapid adoption of its two liquid biopsy products, Guardant360 and GuardantOMNI. The former product helps match advanced-stage cancer patients with the best treatment. The latter enables drugmakers to more effectively screen participants for clinical trials of experimental cancer therapies.
However, Guardant Health could truly achieve the promise of liquid biopsies with its two Lunar assays. Both are still being evaluated in clinical studies right now. The company hopes that Lunar-1 will be useful in helping make decisions for adjuvant treatment for cancer and in cancer recurrence monitoring. Lunar-2 has tremendous potential in detecting cancer at early stages. Guardant Health recently reported positive results from a clinical study of Lunar-2 in detecting early stage colon cancer.
Like Fastly, Guardant Health sports a market cap of more than $8 billion but is still unprofitable. However, the liquid biopsy pioneer should have an addressable market of $6 billion for its current products plus a potential market of more than $45 billion for its Lunar assays if they're successful in clinical testing. I think Guardant Health will be a monster stock over the next decade.
Livongo Health: Providing a chronic tonic
Livongo Health (LVGO) stands out as another healthcare stock that has been a huge winner but still has plenty of room to run. Its shares have cruised close to 340% higher so far this year, thanks in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The coronavirus outbreak caused healthcare payers such as government programs, insurers, and large self-insured employers to notice the increased risks for people with chronic conditions. Livongo provided a solution. Its digital health-management platform uses data science to coach individuals with chronic conditions in ways that lead to better health outcomes and lower costs.
Livongo started out focusing mainly on diabetes management. Its technology also can assist individuals with other chronic conditions including hypertension and behavioral health issues. The company has been remarkably successful, picking up over 30% of the 2018 Fortune 500 as customers.
There's still an enormous untapped market ahead of Livongo, though. It still has only a sliver of the $28 million diabetes opportunity. Hypertension presents another $18.5 billion potential annual market. And those numbers only include individuals in the U.S. with these chronic conditions. Like Fastly and Guardant Health, Livongo looks like a great stock to buy if you want to make a fast fortune.
