Goldman analysts are watching these non-software growth stocks

It’s been a rough run for what Wall Street calls secular growth stocks: companies that can boost sales because of long-term shifts in their sector, almost regardless of broader economic conditions.

Software stocks, longtime secular growth poster children, have recently been creamed by worries their days are numbered due to AI. Despite weathering the market shocks from the war with Iran relatively well, software remains down sharply, with the iShares Expanded Tech Software ETF down roughly 30% for the year.

But software hasn’t been the only problem.

“Even excluding Software, many secular growth stocks have recently
underperformed and trade at discounted valuation multiples relative to the
past decade,” Goldman analysts wrote in a note published Friday.

That could be an opportunity, they suggested.

“The median non-software stock in our ‘Rule of 10’ secular growth screen trades at a P/E of 29x, a 53% premium to the median S&P 500 stock that is close to the bottom of the range during the past 10 years. Consensus 2027 sales growth for the median company in the screen is 3x the growth rate for the median S&P 500 company. PEG ratios are also similar to levels reached during recent troughs.”

The company noted that power infrastructure is a particularly interesting place to prospect for non-software-related growth at something of a discount.

It also provided a helpful list of non-software growth stocks based on its screen for companies that have notched 10% sales growth in 2024 and 2025 and are expected to do the same through 2028.

It includes familiar AI-related names like Broadcom, Advanced Micro Devices, Vertiv Holdings, Arista Networks, and Nvidia, as well as a couple outliers such as DoorDash and Axon.

We’ve thrown in the dates of their upcoming earnings reports, which will be interesting to keep an eye on over the next few weeks.