2 Top Nasdaq Stocks to Buy Before They Soar in 2026

The market has been surging this spring, once again led by the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite. However, that doesn't mean it's too late to join the party. There are still tech stocks out there that look ready to soar but haven't yet.

Let's look at two growth stocks that could be ready to soar the rest of the year.

Microsoft: A cloud giant

Of the big three cloud providers, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the only one in the red this year, down about 15% as of this writing. However, the company has continued to hit on all cylinders, led by its cloud unit, Azure.

Last quarter, Azure revenue surged 40%, marking the unit's eleventh straight quarter of growth of 30% or above. Meanwhile, its artificial intelligence (AI) annual recurring revenue (ARR) skyrocketed 123%, and the company said it was seeing "unprecedented growth" with its GitHub solution driven by agentic coding. It will switch its GitHub Copilot to a usage-based pricing model, which should be a nice growth driver. At the same time, it has a whopping $627 billion in Azure commitments, meaning it has a very long runway of cloud growth in the future.

The company also continues to see strong growth on the software side, with enterprise adoption of its AI assistant copilots picking up. Last quarter, it saw Microsoft 365 Copilot seat additions skyrocket 250% to 20 million paid subscriptions, demonstrating that the company can be an AI winner on this side of its business as well.

With Microsoft's stock not participating in the market's spring rally, it trades at an attractive valuation, with a forward P/E of 21 times fiscal 2027 analyst estimates (ending June 2027). While Microsoft has been punished along with the rest of the software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry, its continued growth and valuation could set it up for a rally later this year and beyond.

Image source: Getty Images.

AppLovin: Strong growth and catalysts ahead

AppLovin (NASDAQ: APP) has been one of the best AI-driven growth stories in the market over the past few years, but the stock hasn't participated in the Nasdaq's recent rally to the extent of many other tech names. In fact, the stock is down about 25% on the year, as of this writing.

This comes despite the adtech company posting yet another outstanding quarter when it reported its Q1 results in early May. Revenue surged 59% to $1.84 billion, while its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) soared 66% to $1.56 billion. The company is incredibly lean and efficient, with gross margins of 89% and EBITDA margins of 85%.

AppLovin's growth has been powered by its Axon 2.0 adtech platform, which uses predictive machine learning to target gaming app users who are likely to download an advertiser's app. The company initially took share from competitors like Unity Software, although right now the entire market looks to be booming, with Unity's Strategic Growth (adtech) segment seeing its revenue soar 49% last quarter, albeit off a much lower base to $279 million.

In the past, AppLovin has said it could grow its gaming app vertical by 20% to 30% a year, just from overall market growth and continued algorithm improvements, but thus far, it has exceeded those expectations. More recently, it noted that the shift of large gaming developers open to hybrid monetization models that incorporate advertising, not just in-app purchases, should be an industry tailwind.

Meanwhile, the company has a couple of big potential growth drivers on the horizon. Historically, AppLovin has operated a closed, managed service ecosystem that was very hands-on and open to only large gaming app developers. However, it will open up its platform for the first time in June with a self-service offering, allowing smaller advertisers to use its platform.

At the same time, the company is still looking to move beyond its core gaming vertical and has seen solid recent progress, with its consumer vertical seeing 25% growth in March compared to January.

Despite its strong growth and impressive margins, AppLovin stock only trades at a forward P/E of 22 times 2027 estimates, setting it up for a nice potential rally given its potential catalysts ahead.

Geoffrey Seiler has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Microsoft and Unity Software. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.