A highly volatile stock can deliver big gains - or just as easily wipe out a portfolio if things go south. While some investors embrace risk, mistakes can be costly for those who aren’t prepared.
These stocks can be a rollercoaster, and StockStory is here to guide you through the ups and downs. Keeping that in mind, here is one volatile stock that could reward patient investors and two that could just as easily collapse.
Two Stocks to Sell:
PagerDuty (PD)
Rolling One-Year Beta: 1.43
Born from the frustration of developers being woken up by unprioritized alerts, PagerDuty (NYSE: PD) is a digital operations management platform that helps organizations detect and respond to IT incidents, outages, and other critical issues in real-time.
Why Does PD Worry Us?
- Products, pricing, or go-to-market strategy may need some adjustments as its 5.9% average billings growth over the last year was weak
- Estimated sales growth of 5.5% for the next 12 months implies demand will slow from its three-year trend
- Poor expense management has led to operating margin losses
PagerDuty’s stock price of $16.05 implies a valuation ratio of 2.9x forward price-to-sales. Dive into our free research report to see why there are better opportunities than PD.
Expedia (EXPE)
Rolling One-Year Beta: 1.52
Originally founded as a part of Microsoft, Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE) is one of the world’s leading online travel agencies.
Why Does EXPE Fall Short?
- Focus on expanding its platform came at the expense of monetization as its average revenue per booking fell by 1.5% annually
- Estimated sales growth of 5.3% for the next 12 months implies demand will slow from its three-year trend
- Highly competitive market means it’s on the never-ending treadmill of sales and marketing spend
Expedia is trading at $225.02 per share, or 9x forward EV/EBITDA. Read our free research report to see why you should think twice about including EXPE in your portfolio.
One Stock to Watch:
Toast (TOST)
Rolling One-Year Beta: 1.49
Born from the frustrations of three friends waiting too long for their restaurant bill, Toast (NYSE: TOST) provides a cloud-based digital technology platform with software, payment processing, and hardware solutions built specifically for restaurants.
Why Does TOST Stand Out?
- ARR trends over the last year show it’s maintaining a steady flow of long-term contracts that contribute positively to its revenue predictability
- Estimated revenue growth of 21% for the next 12 months implies its momentum over the last three years will continue
- Operating margin expanded by 7.2 percentage points over the last year as it scaled and became more efficient
At $40 per share, Toast trades at 3.6x forward price-to-sales. Is now a good time to buy? See for yourself in our comprehensive research report, it’s free.
Stocks We Like Even More
Donald Trump’s April 2025 "Liberation Day" tariffs sent markets into a tailspin, but stocks have since rebounded strongly, proving that knee-jerk reactions often create the best buying opportunities.
The smart money is already positioning for the next leg up. Don’t miss out on the recovery - check out our Top 6 Stocks for this week. This is a curated list of our High Quality stocks that have generated a market-beating return of 183% over the last five years (as of March 31st 2025).
Stocks that made our list in 2020 include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+1,545% between March 2020 and March 2025) as well as under-the-radar businesses like the once-micro-cap company Tecnoglass (+1,754% five-year return). Find your next big winner with StockStory today for free. Find your next big winner with StockStory today. Find your next big winner with StockStory today
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