A screen of the S&P 500 still has Nvidia standing out, despite this year’s DeepSeek disruption for the stock.
A year ago, a screen of the S&P 500 placed Nvidia Corp. at the top of the list of companies that were expected to show the most rapid increases in revenue from 2023 through 2025. Now it is time to run the screen again, using estimates through 2026.
We ran that screen on Feb. 15 last year, using data as of the market close the previous day. Nvidia’s (NVDA) stock has returned 80% from Feb. 14, 2024, through Tuesday, while the S&P 500 SPX has returned 23%. All investment returns in this article included reinvested dividends.
Nvidia’s stock has declined 1.1% this year, while the S&P 500 has returned 3.3%, through Tuesday. So one might conclude that the disruption on Jan. 27, when Nvidia’s stock sank 17.5% on the news that DeepSeek had developed effective generative artificial intelligence technology at a far lower price than previously thought possible, has turned out not to be such a big deal. At least not yet.
It turns out that Nvidia’s stock looks even more compelling than it did a year ago, based on a combination of expected sales growth, the stock’s valuation to expected earnings and Wall Street analysts’ price targets.
A new screen of the S&P 500 for expected revenue growth
We screened consensus revenue estimates for the S&P 500 among analysts by FactSet through 2026, with 2024 as the baseline. The annual sales estimates were adjusted by FactSet for calendar years, since about 20% of companies in the S&P 500 have fiscal years that don’t match calendar years. The screen was limited to companies in the index covered by at least five analysts polled by FactSet.
We are presenting three tables for the companies that passed the screen in order to show expected sales growth, how the stock’s valuations to expected earnings have changed over the past year, and to summarize analysts’ opinions of the stocks at current prices.
Here are the 20 companies in the S&P 500 expected to show the highest compound annual growth rates (CAGR) for revenue from calendar 2024 through calendar 2026. The sales estimates are in millions.
Company Ticker Estimated sales CAGR through 2026 Est. 2026 revenue Est. 2025 revenue Est. 2024 revenue
Nvidia Corp. NVDA 38.5% $236,824 $192,328 $123,523
KeyCorp KEY 30.8% $7,900 $7,372 $4,619
Palantir Technologies Inc. Class A PLTR 28.9% $4,760 $3,751 $2,865
Super Micro Computer Inc. SMCI 28.3% $32,179 $27,630 $19,549
Truist Financial Corp. TFC 27.1% $21,792 $20,739 $13,490
First Solar Inc. FSLR 26.4% $6,669 $5,527 $4,176
Eli Lilly and Co. LLY 25.1% $70,432 $58,982 $44,997
Micron Technology Inc. MU 24.9% $44,461 $38,202 $28,502
KKR & Co Inc. KKR 24.8% $11,162 $9,268 $7,167
Coterra Energy Inc. CTRA 23.3% $8,332 $7,727 $5,484
EQT Corp. EQT 23.0% $8,483 $7,802 $5,611
Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. TTWO 22.4% $8,314 $7,565 $5,549
Axon Enterprise Inc. AXON 22.3% $3,103 $2,558 $2,076
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD 21.9% $38,333 $31,814 $25,785
CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. Class A CRWD 21.8% $5,716 $4,690 $3,856
Boeing Co. BA 21.1% $97,614 $84,307 $66,517
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. AJG 21.0% $16,749 $14,844 $11,436
Blackstone Inc. BX 21.0% $17,031 $14,067 $11,637
Targa Resources Corp. TRGP 19.5% $23,141 $20,960 $16,211
ServiceNow Inc. NOW 19.2% $15,606 $13,038 $10,984
Source: FactSet
These estimates compare to a weighted estimated revenue CAGR of 5.7% for the S&P 500.
From the consensus estimates, analysts expect Nvidia’s sales to increase at an annualized pace of 38.5% over the next two calendar years. Last year when we ran the screen Nvidia’s expected two-year sales CAGR was 38.9%.
One reason KeyCorp (KEY) of Cleveland places second on the list is that its 2024 revenue estimate has been lowered by losses on the sale of securities, which totaled $908 million during the year. This was included in the bank’s noninterest income and lowered its total revenue.
Truist Financial (TFC) also makes the list because of a balance-sheet repositioning that caused it to book $6.65 billion in securities losses in 2024, which lowered the bank’s revenue.
Now let’s look at forward price-to-earnings valuations. These are stock prices divided by rolling 12-month earnings-per-share estimates among analysts polled by FactSet. For the S&P 500 as a whole, the weighted forward P/E is now 22.2, up from 20.6 a year ago.
Company Ticker Forward P/E Forward P/E one year ago
Nvidia Corp. NVDA 29.7 33.3
KeyCorp KEY 11.6 11.2
Palantir Technologies Inc. Class A PLTR 204.4 72.2
Super Micro Computer Inc. SMCI 12.0 29.1
Truist Financial Corp. TFC 11.5 10.2
First Solar Inc. FSLR 7.4 10.7
Eli Lilly and Co. LLY 37.0 56.4
Micron Technology Inc. MU 10.5 33.2
KKR & Co Inc. KKR 23.8 19.1
Coterra Energy Inc. CTRA 8.7 10.9
EQT Corp. EQT 16.9 11.8
Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. TTWO 31.0 27.0
Axon Enterprise Inc. AXON 103.4 63.8
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD 22.7 45.0
CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. Class A CRWD 97.8 86.9
Boeing Co. BA N/A 56.2
Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. AJG 27.0 23.1
Blackstone Inc. BX 28.3 25.1
Targa Resources Corp. TRGP 24.6 14.6
ServiceNow Inc. NOW 60.1 60.3
Source: FactSet
Some of these P/E ratios are very high, but this should not be much of a surprise, as many of these rapid sales growers aren’t yet emphasizing profits. They are focused on growing their markets or increasing market share.
Nvidia’s forward P/E has declined over the past year, even though its stock has returned 84% for one year through Feb. 11. That means consensus earnings estimates have more than kept pace with the stock price. And one could argue that Nvidia trades at a low P/E, considering how much more quickly it is expected to grow compared with the index as a whole.
So there are three reasons Nvidia is even more compelling than it was a year ago – the leading expectation for sales growth, the declining P/E valuation and the relatively low P/E valuation.
Now let’s look at a summary of analysts’ opinions about the 20 stocks. You might need to scroll the table to see all of the data.
Company Ticker Feb. 11 price Consensus price target Implied 12-month upside potential Share "buy" ratings Share neutral ratings Share "sell" ratings Nvidia Corp. NVDA $132.80 $174.75 32% 91% 9% 0% KeyCorp KEY $17.56 $19.92 13% 42% 58% 0% Palantir Technologies Inc. Class A PLTR $112.62 $92.59 -18% 28% 52% 20% Super Micro Computer Inc. SMCI $38.61 $36.63 -5% 40% 40% 20%