For the past 12 years, growth stocks have run absolute circles around value stocks. The reason? Borrowing rates have continued to push lower and, for much of the past 12 years, the Federal Reserve has maintained a dovish stance with regard to monetary policy. In short, growth stocks have had cheap access to capital with which to innovate, hire, and even acquire other businesses.
But the thing about equities some people forget is they move in both directions. Even though the long-term trend for the major indexes is up, short-term moves can be unpredictable. Over the past couple of months, we've witnessed a pretty broad sell-off in growth stocks. While some have recovered, many remain on sale and are ripe for the picking.
The growth stock sale of 2021 has arrived, folks, and this trio of companies is begging to be bought.
Fastly
The first growth stock that's been put on the clearance rack of late is edge cloud services company Fastly (NYSE:FSLY). As recently as Feb. 9, Fastly shares closed at nearly $119. Yet, on Wednesday, April 14, they could be purchased for $72.20. That's a discount of 39% in just over two months, for those of you keeping score at home.
Fastly was one of a few dozen companies that really benefited from the coronavirus pandemic. With businesses pushing online and into the cloud, it's become more important than ever to ensure that content reaches end users as quickly and securely as possible. Even when the pandemic ends, consumer and enterprise content consumption habits are unlikely to change much. That's great news for Fastly and its usage-based platform.
So, why the 39% decline? A lot of it had with Fastly's full-year outlook. In particular, Fastly sees its losses for 2021 coming in higher than Wall Street's consensus, primarily due to higher headcount and acquisition-related expenses. The company also gained only 37 new customers in the fourth quarter, which was a significant slowdown from the preceding quarters.
On the other hand, it's pretty clear that Fastly's existing clients love its services. It sported a 99% annual revenue retention rate last year, and delivered a dollar-based net expansion rate of 147% and 143%, respectively in the third and fourth quarters. In plainer terms, nearly all of its existing clients stick around, and those that did spent 47% and 43% more in Q3 2020 and Q4 2020 than they did in the year-ago quarters.
Fastly is the type of innovative business that can maintain a 30% sales growth rate throughout the decade. Its recent discount is an excellent opportunity for patient investors to pounce.
Trupanion
Another growth stock with plenty of paw-tential that can be picked up at one heck of a discount is companion animal health insurance provider Trupanion (NASDAQ:TRUP). On Feb. 8, 2021, Trupanion closed at almost $124 a share. But a little over two months later, it's at $76.38. That's a 38% discount for opportunistic investors.
Why the sell-off? Similar to Fastly, Trupanion's slide appears to be tied to its most recent operating results announcement. During the fourth quarter, Trupanion lost $0.09 a share, which was wider than the $0.03 per share loss analysts had been looking for. To boot, customer acquisition costs also rose slightly. Considering that Trupanion's share price had risen from $26 to $126 in 11 months, investors seemed less inclined to give the company the benefit of the doubt.
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