U.S. stock markets ended June on a mixed note. The Dow was up 2.6%, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.5% and 3.3%, respectively. Soaring crude oil prices due to the war between the U.S.-Israel joint forces and Iran, sticky inflation and serious concerns about the sustainability of highly overvalued artificial intelligence (AI) trade dented investors' sentiment to some extent.
However, as the Middle-East geopolitical conflicts cool down and crude oil prices return to normalcy, the fear of a surge in the inflation rate has evaporated. Moreover, weak job data for June raised hope that the Fed may hold the benchmark lending rate steady and will not raise it anytime soon.
At this stage, we have identified five growth stocks that investors should purchase to strengthen their portfolios in July. Growth investors are primarily focused on stocks with aggressive earnings or revenue growth, which should propel prices higher in the future.
The stocks are: Micron Technology Inc. MU, Seagate Technology Holdings plc STX, Dell Technologies Inc. DELL, Palantir Technologies Inc. PLTR and Ciena Corp. CIEN. Each of our picks sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and has a Growth Score of A. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
The chart below shows the price performance of our five picks in the past three months.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Micron Technology Inc.
Micron has been benefiting tremendously from the enormous application of AI in day-to-day life, which has pushed up the demand for memory chips. The four major hyperscalers raised their AI capital expenditure budget to $750 billion for 2026. This figure is set to cross $1 trillion next year and is likely to rise further beyond 2027.
This has resulted in more AI semiconductor sales, implying the need for multiple AI memory chips to operate. Flash memory technologies like DRAM and NAND are used in AI chips, enabling them to perform optimally.
This has pushed up the demand for AI-enabled memory chips. In their last earnings reports, all four major hyperscalers highlighted a shortage of memory and storage chips, resulting in soaring prices of these products. As a result, MU benefits significantly.
Micron has meaningful exposure to AI, cloud data centers, industrial IoT and autonomous vehicles, all of which require increasingly advanced memory solutions. As AI adoption accelerates, demand for DRAM and NAND products continues to rise.
MU has invested heavily in next-generation memory technologies, positioning itself to meet the growing performance and efficiency requirements of AI systems. A particularly important growth driver is high-bandwidth memory (“HBM”), which has become essential for advanced AI workloads. Micron Technology’s HBM3E and HBM4 products are seeing exceptionally strong demand because they offer the speed and efficiency required by modern AI systems.
MU’s position in the AI ecosystem continues to strengthen. NVIDIA identified Micron as a key HBM supplier for its GeForce RTX 50 Blackwell GPUs, reinforcing its importance within the AI supply chain. Demand for HBM4 is also benefiting from next-generation AI infrastructure deployments, including NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin platform.
Micron has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of more than 100% each for the current year (ending August 2026). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year’s earnings has improved 16.3% in the last seven days.
Seagate Technology Holdings plc
Seagate Technology has been benefiting from AI-led storage demand, a robust technology roadmap anchored in Mozaic and HAMR and disciplined execution focused on converting demand into profitable growth and long-term value creation.
STX highlighted that the company is entering a “new era of structural growth” driven by strong AI-led demand, the rising adoption of Mozaic products and disciplined execution focused on expanding margins, cash flow and long-term value.
HDDs remain significantly more cost-effective for bulk storage—especially critical in hyperscale data centers supporting AI infrastructure. Seagate is well-positioned to capture this expanding opportunity through a technology strategy focused on increasing areal density rather than unit volumes, enabling a more capital- and manufacturing-efficient path to scale while improving cost and power efficiency per terabyte.
This supports STX’s target of mid-20% exabyte growth. Its Mozaic 4+ platform, a second-generation HAMR product, delivers up to 44TB per drive — more than 30% higher capacity than earlier versions — achieved with minimal changes to materials, while integrating advanced laser and photonics technology for precision manufacturing at scale.
Seagate Technology has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 38% and 85.6%, respectively, for the current year (ending June 2027). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year’s earnings has improved 5.2% in the last 30 days.
Dell Technologies Inc.
Dell Technologies is benefiting from strong demand for AI-optimized servers driven by the ongoing digital transformation and heightened interest in generative AI applications. Its PowerEdge XE9680 AI-optimized server is much in demand.
DELL’s advanced AI-optimized servers, including the PowerEdge XE9780 and 9780L platforms supporting up to 256 NVIDIA HGX B300 GPUs per rack, the XE9712 with NVIDIA GB300 NVL72, and the XE7745 supporting NVIDIA RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell GPUs, are noteworthy.
In fiscal fourth-quarter 2026, DELL launched the PowerEdge XE9712 supporting NVIDIA's NVL72 GB200. It launched the Dell Infrastructure Rack Sobel system, IR7000 and 5000 in both 21-inch and 19-inch versions, providing up to 96 GPUs in a rack and 786 GPUs in a scalable unit. The strong demand trend bodes well for the company’s long-term prospects.
Dell Technology has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 50.2% and 82.2%, for the current year (ending January 2027). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year’s earnings has improved 0.6% over the last 30 days.
Palantir Technologies Inc.
Palantir Technologies’ AI strategy is comprehensive, combining its proprietary Foundry and Gotham platforms with a solid plan to promote AI adoption across both government and commercial sectors.
PLTR’s AI Platform is the backbone of these capabilities, enabling organizations to process large datasets and derive real-time insights. This is especially valuable in sectors requiring extensive data integration, such as defense, healthcare, finance and intelligence, where operational efficiency and decision-making speed are critical.
In the government sector, Palantir is aligning its AI strategy with U.S. defense priorities. Its work in high-profile initiatives, such as the Department of Defense’s Open DAGIR project, highlights its ability to modernize military operations through AI-driven solutions where data interoperability and real-time decision-making capabilities are imperative. These capabilities solidify PLTR’s position as a key player in the defense sector.
In the commercial space, Palantir’s AIP boot camps — providing hands-on experience to over 1,000 companies — have proven instrumental in customer acquisition. Boot camps showcase the platform’s capabilities and demonstrate its adaptability across logistics, manufacturing, and supply-chain management. PLTR’s core customer base comprises businesses seeking tailored AI/ML services, particularly large government and corporate clients willing to invest heavily in its systems.
Palantir has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 71.9% and 96%, respectively, for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year’s earnings has improved 9.7% over the last 60 days.
Ciena Corp.
Ciena is well poised to benefit from AI-led demand for optical networking across cloud and service providers and a growing backlog despite ongoing supply woes. Expanding bandwidth needs, rising data center interconnect activity, and solid uptake of coherent optical technologies bode well.
Ciena's revenues are primarily generated from packet optical transport, switching products, integrated networks and software platforms. CIEN continues to diversify its footprint in data center connectivity and AI networking infrastructure. Management reported new hyperscaler wins for coherent modules, additional DCOM customer engagements and continued demand for 400G and 800G pluggables.
Strong traction in Hyper-Rail, DCOM and coherent modules reinforces CIEN’s position in high-speed connectivity and broadens its opportunities across WAN and data center environments. CIEN is also driving operating leverage through higher margins, earnings and cash flow. CIEN raised its fiscal 2026 revenue outlook to $6.3 billion, up 32% at the midpoint.
Ciena has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 32.4% and more than 100%, respectively, for the current year (ending October 2026). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year’s earnings has improved 5.3% in the last 30 days.
Zacks' Research Chief Names "Stock Most Likely to Double"
Our team of experts has just released the 5 stocks with the greatest probability of gaining +100% or more in the coming months. Of those 5, Director of Research Sheraz Mian highlights the one stock set to climb highest.
This top pick is a little-known satellite-based communications firm. Space is projected to become a trillion dollar industry, and this company's customer base is growing fast. Analysts have forecasted a major revenue breakout in 2025. Of course, all our elite picks aren't winners but this one could far surpass earlier Zacks' Stocks Set to Double like Hims & Hers Health, which shot up +209%.
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Ciena Corporation (CIEN): Free Stock Analysis Report
Dell Technologies Inc. (DELL): Free Stock Analysis Report
Seagate Technology Holdings PLC (STX): Free Stock Analysis Report
Micron Technology, Inc. (MU): Free Stock Analysis Report
Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR): Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).