Goldman Sachs Flags Top Growth Stocks in Unusual Market Analysis

Goldman Sachs has developed an unusual method for finding growth stocks in expensive markets.

The bank's chief U.S. equity strategist, Ben Snider, screened the Russell 1000 for companies with over $5 billion market value that are expected to generate annual sales growth above 10% three years from now.

Goldman then ranked these companies by the dispersion in analysts' forward revenue forecasts.

The idea is that when valuation differences across stocks are relatively narrow and growth companies already command hefty premiums, investors may have more opportunity to outperform when their revenue assumptions differ meaningfully from consensus.

SpaceX (SPCX) sits at the top of Goldman's wide-dispersion screen with a consensus call for 72% fiscal third-year sales growth and a dispersion score of 0.31, the highest among the identified stocks.