3 Growth Stocks Worth Buying Through the Volatility and Holding for a Lifetime

The article highlights AI-driven opportunities across BAE Systems, GE Vernova, and Vertiv, emphasizing revenue growth, partnerships, and long-term demand from data center and defense infrastructure. BAE Systems posted revenue growth from 25.2 billion pounds in 2023 to 30.6 billion pounds in 2025 and has an 83.6 billion pound backlog, while GE Vernova reported $9.3 billion in revenue and $4.7 billion in net income in Q1 2026. Vertiv guided 2026 full-year net sales to $13.5 billion-$14 billion versus $10.2 billion in 2025, but all three names are described as volatile despite positive long-term AI exposure.

Analysis

The key second-order read-through is that AI capex is no longer just a semiconductor story; it is increasingly a power-and-thermal bottleneck story. That shifts incremental bargaining power toward the infrastructure layer, but it also means the winners are becoming more dependent on hyperscaler spending discipline and permitting timelines, not just model training demand. In other words, the trade is moving from “AI enthusiasm” to “AI conversion rates” — how much announced compute spend actually turns into orders, backlog burn, and installed-base monetization.

GE Vernova looks best positioned on a medium-term basis because power scarcity is becoming the gating factor for data-center growth, and utilities/IPP customers typically sign longer-dated contracts once they are forced into the queue. The market may still be underestimating how much of the AI buildout shifts from pure digital infrastructure into regulated, slower-growing assets with better visibility and less competition. The flip side is that this makes the equity more rate-sensitive and headline-sensitive: any delay in data-center load growth, gas turbine permitting, or policy friction around nuclear/SMRs can compress multiples quickly after a strong run.

Vertiv remains the highest-beta expression of the theme, but that also means the risk/reward is less attractive after a large move unless the order book keeps inflecting. The stock is effectively trading on the belief that cooling density and power-management intensity will keep rising faster than pricing pressure or customer diversification risk; that is plausible, but vulnerable if hyperscalers optimize capital intensity or if a few large projects slip. BAE is the most defensive way to own AI-adjacent optionality because AI is augmenting existing defense workflows rather than depending on a greenfield adoption cycle, but the catalyst path is slower and more procurement-driven than the market may want.

The consensus may be overpricing the immediacy of the AI monetization curve and underpricing the durability of the infrastructure capex cycle. The better trade is not chasing the highest-multiple “AI beneficiaries,” but owning the bottlenecks where demand is constrained by physical systems and long lead times. If AI spending wobbles, the first de-rating will hit the most crowded picks-and-shovels names; if it persists, the backlog and contract duration should protect the true infrastructure monopolies.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Maintain a tactical long in GEV for 3-6 months: best risk/reward among the group because power buildout is the binding constraint; use pullbacks to add, but respect rate sensitivity and expect 15-20% drawdowns on any AI-capex scare.
• Avoid initiating fresh longs in VRT after the sharp rerating unless it bases for several weeks; if already owned, consider trimming into strength and re-entering only on a 10-15% correction to improve asymmetry.
• Use BAE as a lower-beta AI-defense proxy for 12-24 months; the setup is more durable but slower, so it fits a barbell with cyclically sensitive AI infrastructure names rather than as a standalone momentum trade.
• Pair trade idea: long GEV / short a basket of crowded AI enablers with weaker earnings conversion and higher multiple risk; the goal is to isolate the infrastructure bottleneck thesis while hedging against a broad AI multiple reset.
• If looking for convexity, consider short-dated call spreads on GEV rather than outright stock into earnings or major data-center capex headlines; this captures upside while limiting the hit from volatility compression after the recent move.