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2 Growth Stocks with Explosive Upside and 1 We Turn Down


Jabin Bastian /
2026/01/12 11:31 pm EST

Growth boosts valuation multiples, but it doesn’t always last forever. Companies that cannot maintain it are often penalized with large declines in market value, a lesson ingrained in investors who lost money in tech stocks during 2022.

Luckily for you, our job at StockStory is to help you avoid short-term fads by pointing you toward high-quality businesses that can generate sustainable long-term growth. That said, here are two growth stocks where the best is yet to come and one whose momentum may slow.

One Growth Stock to Sell:

Viavi Solutions (VIAV)

One-Year Revenue Growth: +15.6%

Once known as JDS Uniphase before its 2015 rebranding, Viavi Solutions (NASDAQ:VIAV) provides testing, monitoring and assurance solutions for telecommunications, cloud, enterprise, military, and other critical networks and infrastructure.

Why Do We Avoid VIAV?

  1. Products and services are facing end-market challenges during this cycle, as seen in its flat sales over the last five years
  2. Free cash flow margin shrank by 7.1 percentage points over the last five years, suggesting the company is consuming more capital to stay competitive
  3. Waning returns on capital from an already weak starting point displays the inefficacy of management’s past and current investment decisions

Viavi Solutions’s stock price of $17.85 implies a valuation ratio of 25x forward P/E. Check out our free in-depth research report to learn more about why VIAV doesn’t pass our bar.

Two Growth Stocks to Buy:

Primoris (PRIM)

One-Year Revenue Growth: +21.5%

Listed on the NASDAQ in 2008, Primoris (NYSE:PRIM) builds, maintains, and upgrades infrastructure in the utility, energy, and civil construction industries.

Why Will PRIM Beat the Market?

  1. Demand is greater than supply as the company’s 143% average backlog growth over the past two years shows it’s securing new contracts and accumulating more orders than it can fulfill
  2. Earnings per share have massively outperformed its peers over the last two years, increasing by 39.1% annually
  3. Free cash flow margin increased by 5.9 percentage points over the last five years, giving the company more capital to invest or return to shareholders

Primoris is trading at $135.27 per share, or 23.7x forward P/E. Is now the time to initiate a position? See for yourself in our in-depth research report, it’s free.

Ryan Specialty (RYAN)

One-Year Revenue Growth: +24.3%

Founded in 2010 by insurance industry veteran Patrick Ryan, Ryan Specialty (NYSE:RYAN) is a wholesale insurance broker and underwriting manager that helps retail brokers place complex or hard-to-place risks with insurance carriers.

Why Should You Buy RYAN?

  1. Average organic revenue growth of 12.8% over the past two years demonstrates its ability to expand independently without relying on acquisitions
  2. Earnings growth has trumped its peers over the last two years as its EPS has compounded at 23.1% annually
  3. Impressive free cash flow profitability enables the company to fund new investments or reward investors with share buybacks/dividends

At $50.77 per share, Ryan Specialty trades at 22x forward P/E. Is now a good time to buy? Find out in our full research report, it’s free.

Stocks We Like Even More

If your portfolio success hinges on just 4 stocks, your wealth is built on fragile ground. You have a small window to secure high-quality assets before the market widens and these prices disappear.

Don’t wait for the next volatility shock. Check out our Top 6 Stocks for this week. This is a curated list of our High Quality stocks that have generated a market-beating return of 244% over the last five years (as of June 30, 2025).

Stocks that made our list in 2020 include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+1,326% between June 2020 and June 2025) as well as under-the-radar businesses like the once-micro-cap company Tecnoglass (+1,754% five-year return). Find your next big winner with StockStory today.