Goldman Sachs says buy these 12 stocks set to deliver market-beating sales growth as coronavirus crushes businesses

REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

• As the US economy hurtles into a severe recession, Goldman Sachs is telling investors how they can target the companies with the best sales growth this year.
• The firm expects the looming recession to wipe out corporate earnings, which have historically been the primary source of stock market returns. That means it's especially important to identify companies capable of continued revenue and profit growth.
• While shutdown measures are halting a lot of spending and business activity, chief US equity strategist David Kostin says some large US companies will still put up strong revenue growth.
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By now it's probably sunk in that growth is going to be hard to find in 2020, which means investors are going to appreciate any help they can get in finding it.

The vast majority of Americans and a big chunk of the global population have been told to shelter in place, stay apart, and keep travel and non-essential economic activity to a minimum. The product of an urgent attempt to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, it's lead to a deep economic contraction.

All of that means trouble for company profits. And if that weren't enough, one of the key sources of profit growth is likely to slack off, too. Investors looking for areas of growth and optimism might want to consider sales instead, as it's a simpler measurement that isn't as susceptible to financial engineering.

And believe it or not, there are still some companies that look promising in that regard.

Goldman Sachs chief US equity strategist David Kostin has brought some of them together by looking at the largest US companies and finding the firms with the highest projected sales growth, based on consensus estimates. The list excludes the largest utilities, banks, and real estate companies, as those tend to have slower growth.

Here are the top 12 companies based on sales projections, ranked from lowest to highest based on their expected revenue growth in 2020.

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