There’s an old stock market adage that states investors should ‘sell in May and go away’. However, I don’t pay much attention to this. In fact, last month, I actually bought three growth stocks for my portfolio.
Interested to know what companies I invested in? Read on and I’ll tell you.
Well positioned for growth
First up, we have FTSE 100 industrial company Ashtead (LSE: AHT). It’s one of the world’s largest construction equipment rental companies.
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I’ve owned this stock for about 18 months now. My view is that it’s an excellent play on US infrastructure spending.
The reason I bought more? Well I noticed that guidance from FTSE 250 company Keller – which specialises in getting ground ready to build on and has a lot of exposure to the US – was strong. This reinforced my view that companies with exposure to the US construction industry like Ashtead are well positioned for growth.
A risk here is that the company could announce that it’s going to spend money on new equipment. This could hit profits, and the share price, in the near term.
Taking a five-year view though, I’m excited about the growth potential here.
‘Transformative profit potential’
The second stock I bought was software company Sage (LSE: SGE). It experienced a sharp share price fall on the back of slightly lower-than-expected guidance and I bought the dip.
Now, in hindsight, I pulled the trigger a little early. Since my purchase, the stock’s continued to fall (a lot of software stocks have been weak in the last few weeks).
However, taking a five-to-10-year view, I’m confident I’ll be rewarded. I see this company as a great play on the ‘digital transformation’ theme. As small- and medium-sized businesses move to adopt cloud-based accounting and payroll solutions, Sage should benefit. It’s worth pointing out here that UK portfolio manager Nick Train believes Sage has ‘transformative profit potential’ in the long run.
Economic weakness is a risk to consider here. This could impact smaller businesses and hurt Sage’s growth.
With the software stock now trading on a forward-looking P/E ratio in the mid-20s though (versus 31 for US rival Intuit), I think it looks attractive.
Sky-high demand for its products
Last but not least we have Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO) – the maker of weight-loss drugs Wegovy and Ozempic. I started a small position here earlier in the year and last month I increased my holding.
The reason I bought this stock is quite simple – the global obesity epidemic. Across the world, there are more than a billion people with obesity today. And this is creating high demand for weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Ozempic.
In Novo Nordisk’s recent quarterly results, it reported net sales growth of 24% year on year. It also raised its full-year guidance.
Given the success Novo Nordisk’s having, other pharma companies are scrambling to develop new weight-loss drugs. These could be a threat to Novo’s future sales.
With the annual market for weight-loss drugs forecast to hit $130bn by 2030 though, I see room for multiple players.
