Deep Dive: 30 stocks that shined in the pandemic are still poised for huge growth through 2024

Such might be the case with Zoom Video Communications Inc.
ZM,
which said Aug. 30 that sales for its fiscal second quarter ended July 31 had increased 54% from a year earlier. It beat consensus estimates for sales and profit. The following day, the company’s shares were down 16%.

Zoom has been one of the biggest winners during the Covid-19 pandemic, which made remote work a necessity for millions and video conferences — often making use of Zoom’s user-friendly platform — a must. The company’s stock rose 411% from the end of 2019 through the close Aug. 30.

Below is a screen of stocks that have at least doubled during the pandemic and are expected to increase sales quickly through 2024.

So what was the problem with Zoom? One thing that may have disappointed investors was that the company’s forecast for earnings for its fiscal third quarter was $1.07 to 1.08 a share, while analysts polled by FactSet had anticipated guidance of $1.10 a share. That may be splitting hairs for a company whose main focus is sales growth.

Read: Zoom’s pandemic boom cools — but the company is building a powerful platform to battle Microsoft and Cisco

Digging further, Mizuho Americas analyst Siti Panigrahi wrote in a note to clients that “churn rising earlier-than-expected” among small businesses with fewer than 10 employees led to the lower-than-expected guidance. Panigrahi maintained a “buy” rating on Zoom but cut his price target for the shares to $350 from $400. Even the lower price target would represent 20% upside within a year from the stock’s closing price of $292.08 on Aug. 30.

And something else that may be of interest is that analysts, based on consensus estimates in a FactSet survey, expect the company’s sales to increase at a high compound annual growth rate of 21.7% for the next three calendar years.

Pandemic winners expected to keep … winning

Starting with the components of the Russell 1000 Index
RUI,
141 stocks have at least doubled since the end of 2019 — a fair point from which to measure performance that encompasses the entire pandemic, without starting after so many stocks tanked in February 2020. Among those 141, consensus sales estimates are available from FactSet through calendar 2024 for 85 companies. We are using calendar years for the estimates because a large number of companies (including Zoom) have fiscal years that don’t match the calendar.

Here are the 30 companies whose stocks have at least doubled since the end of 2019 that are expected to achieve the highest compound annual growth rates (CAGR) for sales, through 2024. Revenue numbers are in millions:

Click on the tickers for more about each company, including news, business profiles and price ratios.

The problem with a stock screen based on any one number is that the results might be skewed. Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc.
SPCE
is expected to show revenue of only $2 million for calendar 2021, and its estimate for 2024 is the lowest on the list. As you can see below, only 36% of analysts polled by FactSet rate Virgin Galactic a “buy” or the equivalent.

This underscores the importance of doing your own research on any investment of interest. For a stock, consider how likely the company is to be able to remain competitive over the next decade.

Leaving the group in the same order, here’s a summary of analysts’ opinions and, to the right, total returns for the stocks since the end of 2019:

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