The best investments are often stocks of companies offering goods and services that are perpetually in demand. Think entertainment, healthcare, or more recently, some consumer technologies. Many of these stocks can be bought and held forever, since they dish out reasonably predictable long-term gains.
Every now and then, though, you gotta swing for the fences. That is to say, you should take a calculated risk on a stock of a company that appears to be entering a period of enormous growth. The pick may or may not pay off as hoped, but if it does, wow!
Here's a closer look at three publicly trading companies entering what could be a 10-year stretch of incredible growth. More to the point, all three stocks are worth risk-tolerant growth investors' consideration.
1. CRISPR Therapeutics
As its name implies, CRISPR Therapeutics(NASDAQ: CRSP) is a biotechnology outfit. Its founders co-created a CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) gene-editing technique that can find, cut, and repair a strand of damaged DNA at a precise point in the chain.
It's a relatively new science. It's so new, in fact, that CRISPR Therapeutics' Casgevy only became the world's first-ever CRISPR-based drug in late 2023, for the treatment of sickle cell disease. Indeed, although it was approved more than a year ago, the company's still in rollout mode with Casgevy. And even once it's up and running at full speed, doctors may be hesitant to try this relatively expensive option (about $2 million for a one-time dose) when lower-cost and better-established treatments for sickle cell disease are available.
This stock's story isn't really about sickle cell though. It's largely about all the other therapies based on the same underlying science that are being tested right now as well. Industry researcher Coherent Market Insights believes now that the first CRISPR-based drug has been approved and made a trail for others to follow, the CRISPR gene-editing treatment market is poised to grow at an annualized pace of more than 20% through 2030.
To this end, CRISPR Therapeutics is currently managing five other clinical trials, with several more pre-clinical studies underway. The next 10 years will largely be about those therapies, which are taking aim at cancer, diabetes, and autoimmune conditions just to name a few.
So why are CRISPR Therapeutics shares down more than 80% from their early 2021 high and knocking on the door of yet another multiyear low? Because the market's got a knack for being out of sync with many biotech stocks. It would also be naïve to pretend this company's continued losses aren't a concern, or that the stock wasn't impacted -- both good and bad -- by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Take a step back and look at the bigger, long-term picture though. The science here isn't just promising. It's game changing.
The stock's poor performance of late has also dragged it down to less than half of analysts' consensus price of $79.32, by the way, spelling opportunity for newcomers.
2. Lam Research
While Lam Research(NASDAQ: LRCX) isn't a household name, there's a good chance you or someone in your household regularly relies on this company's technology.
See, Lam makes the equipment needed by the likes of Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to manufacture the microchips used in the very technology you're utilizing right now. It offers solutions for almost all facets of the chipmaking process, from machines that layer or etch a chip into existence to materials prep to software that helps virtually design a chip before attempting to fabricate it.
Image source: Getty Images.
Lam Research's equipment can be prohibitively expensive. Its electrochemical deposition machines, for example, can easily cost more than $1 million apiece, and most chip foundries would need several of them to achieve enough production scale to matter. This means buying them requires a bit of financial planning, which in turn leaves the company vulnerable to economic headwinds that might cause foundries to postpone such a purchase or shop around for a cheaper alternative.
To this end, while analysts believe Lam will enjoy sales growth of well over 20% this fiscal year, this top-line growth could slow to a mere 2% for the fiscal year starting in July.
As was the case with CRISPR Therapeutics though, take a step back and look at the bigger picture. The ongoing explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) is driving exponential growth in demand for high-performance silicon, leaving chipmakers with little choice but to tap Lam for its tech.
Of course, for large-scale semiconductor outfits, Lam Research's tools ultimately lead to a lower per-chip cost.
But tariffs? CEO Tim Archer isn't too worried. As he pointed out in last month's quarterly earnings report, Lam operates several manufacturing sites all over the world that will help the company cost-effectively navigate any cross-border business it needs to conduct.
3. Rigetti Computing
Finally, add Rigetti Computing(NASDAQ: RGTI) to your list of stocks that could shine particularly brightly over the course of the coming 10 years.
To date, most investors looking to plug into the fast-growing quantum computing business have likely chosen IonQ. And understandably so. Not only is it one of only a handful of so-called "pure plays" within the industry, but IonQ is arguably further along quantum computing's practical developmental path than any other outfit.
IonQ's Forte system that's now commercially available boasts 36 qubits (more qubits means more computing power) making it affordable yet still powerful enough to be useful. For perspective, Google's latest -- and still mostly experimental -- quantum chip, called Willow, boasts 105 qubits, but that pales in comparison to IBM's 1,121-qubit platform called Condor and Atom's 1,180-qubit system.
Problem? Not only are these systems absolute overkill compared to the current use for this much computing capacity, even merely renting access to these platforms is shockingly expensive -- on the order of $50 to $100 per minute, for Condor. Never even mind buying them.
Rigetti Computing is going in a different and far more practical direction. It's making systems with considerably fewer qubits for outright sale. Its 9-qubit Novera, for example, can be purchased today for less than $1 million. That's still a ton of dough, but if you legitimately need a quantum computer, you likely have access to this kind of money, and you can still do plenty with this platform.
Like CRISPR Therapeutics and Lam Research, Rigetti is still operating in the red, and will likely stay in the red for at least a while longer.
Just take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Now that would-be users are seeing the value, an outlook from Precedence Research suggests the global quantum computing market is set to grow at an average yearly pace of more than 30% through 2034.
Affordable systems like the Novera should find solid demand simply because they're powerful enough to meet most institutions' actual needs yet are affordable enough to purchase and keep on-premise. That's actually a pretty big deal.
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Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. James Brumley has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, CRISPR Therapeutics, Intel, International Business Machines, Lam Research, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: short May 2025 $30 calls on Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
