3 Steady Growth Stocks for a Choppy 2025

Every January I’m tapped by the boss to do a market outlook webinar, where I gather all my thoughts on the year that’s getting underway to give my best guess as to the type of environment we’re likely to see going ahead. Given what we saw in 2024—a huge up year for growth and glamour names, resulting in Cabot Growth Investor’s second-best performance over the past two decades—I went back and looked at what happened after other big years for growth stocks.

It turns out that, over the past 25 years, such big years usually lead to another up year for the market—but the action is much choppier, with trends lasting weeks instead of months and plenty of ups and downs. And, frankly, that view is off to an accurate start given the endless chop seen in the major indexes and growth stocks: Just about everything I watch has been stuck in a wide-and-loose range for the past two months or longer.

(By the way, if you missed the webinar, you can view it for free by clicking this link—all you’ll need to do is enter your name and email address.)

Now, “choppy” doesn’t mean “bearish”—like I said, I still think the odds favor 2025 being a solid year overall, with leadership (likely some fresher titles rather than the well-known names from 2023 and 2024) sporting gains.

But when it comes to individual stocks, whippy, rotational action could be more the rule than the exception. And that has me looking not just at fast-moving glamour names (I’ll always be looking for those), but also more well-situated, steadier growth titles, too—combining the two can balance your portfolio and help you withstand some of the volatility seen already this year.

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To be clear, I’m not talking about giant, slow blue chips or defensive titles, but growth stocks that move a bit slower, have more reasonable valuations and have reliable outlooks—all of which entice big investors to build and hold big positions.

3 Steady Growth Stocks I’m Watching Now

GE Aerospace (GE)

GE Aerospace (GE) is one of the largest jet engine makers in the world, and that’s a great business for a few reasons: First, there’s not much competition, with most of the global market owned by a few big players; second, industry trends (based on fleet upgrades and expansions) usually last many years; and third, the recurring revenue here is giant, with each engine sale leading to a couple decades of servicing business. Sales, earnings and free cash flow ($7 billion share buyback program this year alone) are gliding higher here at double-digit rates, and after a long rest, GE has moved out on the upside after Q4 earnings.

Kyndryl Holdings (KD)

Kyndryl Holdings (KD) is a former spin-off from IBM that specializes in IT infrastructure services—while it does benefit from the trends in AI, a lot of business here revolves around consulting and managed services, not the latest connectivity gadgets or chips. Some older offerings have kept sales growth in the red, but that should change starting in Q1 of this year—and more importantly, profit margins are taking off and should continue to do so for many years. Free cash flow should be around $1.45 per share for fiscal 2025 (ending in March) and could triple over the next three years, too. The stock has been generally strong since November and reacted well to earnings recently.

Hilton Worldwide (HLT)

Last but not least is Hilton (HLT), which needs no introduction—as one of the biggest global hotel firms, with 24 brands and more than 8,400 properties. Of course, travel demand has been strong, which is certainly helping, but Hilton itself is in expansion mode: For 2024, the company added 98,400 rooms to its portfolio, resulting in net unit growth of 7.3%, and for 2025 the early outlook is for that figure to grow 6.5% or so. Combined with higher prices, it’s leading to very solid and expanding earnings and cash flow—which, in turn, is leading to solid shareholder returns (an expected $3.3 billion of dividends and share buybacks this year, more than 5% of the market cap). HLT won’t be your fastest horse, but shares have been in a major uptrend for a while and recently reacted well to earnings.

Again, the bread and butter for a growth portfolio will always be more dynamic leading stocks, but adding in a couple of steadier names could smooth out what could be some ups and downs in the market in the months ahead.

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A growth stock and market timing expert, Michael Cintolo is Chief Investment Strategist of Cabot Wealth Network and Chief Analyst of Cabot Top Ten Trader and Cabot Growth Investor. His Cabot Top Ten Trader is a ticket to fast profits in stocks that are under accumulation now.


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