It has been far from plain sailing in my Stocks and Shares ISA in 2025. A handful of my US-listed growth stocks have fallen significantly, notably Novo Nordisk (-21%) and The Trade Desk (-32%).
Thankfully, these laggards have easily been offset by stocks doing very well. Here are three of the standout performers that have been driving wealth in my ISA this year.
Uber
First up is Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER), whose shares are up a lovely 46% year to date.
The ride-hailing and food delivery giant continues to serve up impressive growth. Trips in Q1 rose 18% year on year to 3bn, supporting a 14% increase in revenue to $11.5bn (+17% on a constant currency basis).
One thing that attracted me to the company is its asset-light model. CFO Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah says Uber has “multiple levers in our control to generate industry-leading cash flow growth.” We are seeing this play out — quarterly free cash flow surged 66% to $2.3bn.
Arguably the biggest risk here remains Tesla‘s plans for a large-scale robotaxi network. While Uber’s partnering with dozens of robotaxi firms around the world, Tesla’s indicated it plans to go it alone with its own consumer-facing app. That could one day siphon off users from Uber.
My own view is that it will be years before such a robotaxi network challenges Uber on a global scale. Elon Musk has described Europe as a “layer cake of regulations and bureaucracy“, which suggests artificial intelligernce-powered robotaxis won’t be navigating the busy streets of London and Paris anytime soon.
I think Uber has years of growth left in the tank and I plan to add to my holding on dips.
Duolingo
Next, we have language learning firm Duolingo (NASDAQ: DUOL). I only bought this stock at the start of 2025, so it’s nice to see it up 59% already.
I’ve been banging on about this stock for a while, so I won’t repeat myself. But the company had 49% more daily active users (46.6m) in Q1 than it did last year, and grew revenue 38% to $230.7m.
A recession might impact subscriber growth or global travel (and therefore the desire to learn a language). The stock’s also very pricey.
But longer term, Duolingo is pursuing a massive market (2bn language learners), while using generative AI to drive efficiency gains and create unprecedented amounts of course content.
MercadoLibre
Finally, e-commerce and fintech powerhouse MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI) has been doing the business (again) this year. Shares of Latin America’s largest company — and my second-largest holding — are up an impressive 47% in 2025.
Of the three, I would say MercadoLibre stock looks the most attractive right now. Granted, a price-to-sales ratio of 5.6 and forward price-to-earnings multiple of 51 don’t scream value. And the firm faces competition from Amazon in e-commerce and Revolut and Nu Holdings in fintech.
But MercadoLibre’s profits are forecast to more than double by 2027. And only 15% of retail spend in Latin America is online today. As the other 85% shifts from physical commerce to digital over the next couple of decades, MercadoLibre looks set up for plenty more growth.
Meanwhile, adjacent opportunities in cashless payments, digital banking and e-commerce marketplace advertising appear plentiful. I think MercadoLibre’s worth considering.
