3 Glorious Growth Stocks to Buy Hand Over Fist If the Stock Market Crashes

The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) index set a fresh record high earlier this month, but volatility is starting to rise amid concerns about the sustainability of the artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure spending boom. On Sunday, Elon Musk made a social media post on X saying funding is drying up for companies that don't have revenue independent of AI data centers, and he predicted that over 200 neoclouds (like CoreWeave) might not survive.

To make matters worse, investors are navigating an elevated inflation rate and rising interest rates, which history suggests could derail the current bull market even without the help of the AI-related jitters. As a result, it might be time to brace for a correction.

Fortunately, the S&P 500 typically trends higher over the long term, so a potential downturn from here will almost certainly be a buying opportunity. I'm going to share three stocks that investors might want to scoop up at a discount if a sell-off in the broader market drags them down.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. CrowdStrike: Securing the AI revolution

CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) is one of the world's largest cybersecurity companies. Its Falcon platform secures the enterprise from top to bottom, protecting cloud networks, employee identities, endpoints, and everything in between. It's powered by advanced AI models that automate threat detection and incident response processes, which is critical for combatting the increasing number of hackers using AI to mount attacks on corporate networks.

Enterprises can choose from 33 Falcon modules (products) to build their ideal cybersecurity solution, and with the Flex subscription option, they can set a fixed annual budget and change modules as their needs evolve. This is particularly useful now given how fast the AI revolution is moving.

The threat from AI isn't just external, because enterprises also place their valuable data at risk every time they deploy a chatbot or agent internally. CrowdStrike developed a Falcon module called AI Detection and Response (AIDR) to manage those risks. It tracks all inputs and outputs from trusted AI applications, so it immediately detects if someone is trying to orchestrate a breach using new techniques like prompt injection.

CrowdStrike's annual recurring revenue (ARR) rose by 25% year over year to $5.84 billion during the company's fiscal 2027 second quarter (ended July 31). However, ARR from the AIDR product almost tripled compared to the previous quarter just three months earlier, so it's experiencing rapid uptake.

CrowdStrike stock isn't cheap as I write this (Oct. 26). In fact, its price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 49.1 makes it the most expensive name in the cybersecurity industry. However, a decline of 20% or 30% from the current level might be a great long-term buying opportunity for investors who are willing to own the stock for the next 5-to-10 years.

CRWD PS Ratio data by YCharts

2. Atlassian: An unmatched pool of enterprise data

Atlassian (NASDAQ: TEAM) is the company behind enterprise software products like Jira and Confluence. Jira helps employees manage projects, while Confluence is a digital town square for sharing important updates and hosting critical documents. In late 2024, the company launched its own AI platform called Rovo, which gave its flagship software products a host of new capabilities.

Rovo now powers the search function in both Jira and Confluence, enabling employees to instantly locate key information from across their entire organization, even if it's stored outside of an Atlassian product. Rovo can also serve as a coding assistant, helping developers complete projects much faster in Jira.

Over 350,000 organizations use Atlassian's products, so it has a treasure trove of contextual enterprise data that no other AI company can match. In fact, that's why AI agents grounded in the Atlassian ecosystem consume 48% fewer tokens than the competition when completing a task, while producing answers that are 44% more accurate. The company can use this incredible advantage to build some of the most powerful AI products in the industry.

Atlassian says the ARR it earns from Rovo customers is increasing at twice the pace of its ARR from non-Rovo customers, so AI is quickly becoming the company's most important source of growth. Investors can buy Atlassian stock at a relatively attractive valuation right now, so it might be a bargain in the wake of any potential sell-off. Its P/S ratio is currently 9, which is half its 10-year average of 18.3.

3. Nvidia: Positioned to lead the physical AI era

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) supplies the world's best graphics processing units (GPUs) for data centers, which are the primary chips used in AI training and inference workloads. Therefore, it's probably more exposed to a potential slowdown in AI infrastructure spending than any other company on the planet. However, the AI hardware boom is expanding beyond the data center and into products like autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots, so a crash in the broader market might present investors with a long-term buying opportunity.

The Nvidia Drive platform is an end-to-end solution for car manufacturers that want to install self-driving capabilities into their latest vehicles. It includes all of the hardware and software they need, so it's a more economical option than developing a platform in-house from scratch. Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Toyota, and BYD are just some of the leading brands adopting Nvidia Drive.

Nvidia also developed several robotics solutions. There is the Jetson Orin platform which is used in the autonomous delivery robots operated by Serve Robotics, and Jetson Thor with Isaac Groot, which is used for building humanoid robots. Elon Musk predicts humanoids will outnumber humans by 2040, so even a small market share could translate to hundreds of millions of robots, creating a very big financial opportunity for suppliers of hardware and software like Nvidia.

With a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of just 26.6, Nvidia stock is already cheaper than the technology-heavy Nasdaq-100 index, which has a P/E of 29.5. But a slowdown in the AI infrastructure boom will impact demand for GPUs and hurt the company's earnings, so its stock might be more expensive than it currently appears.

This might sound controversial, but given the uncertainty, I would personally only buy this stock in the throes of an S&P 500 bear market, when fears about the AI industry have likely reached a crescendo.

Anthony Di Pizio has positions in Atlassian. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Atlassian, CrowdStrike, Nvidia, and Serve Robotics. The Motley Fool recommends BYD Company. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.