The Growth Rank helps you evaluate how fast a company is growing compared to its competitors. A Growth Rank of 75 means the company shows stronger growth than 75% of similar companies. A high Growth Rank suggests that the company is expanding its revenues, earnings, or operations at a faster pace, signaling strong business momentum. This can be the result of innovation, strategic investments, or rising demand for the company’s products and services. In contrast, a low Growth Rank often indicates stagnation, operational struggles, or limited market opportunities.
Still, a low rank doesn't always mean the company lacks potential, just as a high rank doesn’t guarantee future success. Some companies with low growth are in mature industries where stability and cash flow matter more than rapid expansion — think utilities, insurance, or infrastructure firms. Others may be intentionally holding back growth to restructure, strengthen operations, or prioritize profitability over scale. On the other hand, high-growth companies might be fueling their expansion with unsustainable debt, benefiting from short-lived trends, or overextending themselves operationally. Growth without quality or discipline can be just as risky as no growth at all.
This is why the Growth Rank should never be used in isolation. Use it as a snapshot of current performance trends, but always combine it with the Value, Safety, and Sentiment Ranks to understand how and why a company is growing, and whether that growth is healthy, sustainable, and worth investing in.
The Growth Rank provides a focused lens into a company’s recent business momentum, but its real power lies in understanding the underlying reasons behind the numbers. Growth can result from many factors; some strategic, others temporary, or even misleading. A high Growth Rank indicates that a company has recently expanded in key areas like revenue, profits, assets, or workforce size. Still, it doesn’t tell you whether that growth is organic, sustainable, or driven by short-term forces. For example, a company might achieve high growth by aggressively entering new markets, launching a popular new product, or capitalizing on a temporary surge in demand. While these events may boost the Growth Rank, they don’t always translate into long-term success if solid execution, scalable operations, or lasting competitive advantages are not in place to support them.
It’s equally important to assess how growth fits into the broader corporate strategy. Is the company growing through reinvestment of profits, or is it taking on significant debt to fund expansion? Are margins improving alongside growth, or is the company sacrificing profitability to gain market share? Understanding the quality of growth is crucial. A company that ranks highly simply because it acquired another firm may look strong on paper, but without successful integration, that growth may not last. Conversely, a business that shows modest or negative growth may be in the midst of restructuring, investing in internal capabilities, or strategically withdrawing from low-performing markets to focus on its core strengths. In such cases, a low Growth Rank is not a weakness; it’s a sign of a company recalibrating for smarter, more sustainable performance in the future.
Beyond raw data, it’s useful to examine growth trajectories over multiple periods. Is the company’s growth accelerating, flattening, or declining? Is it consistent across all metrics, or is one driving the others? For instance, high growth paired with low Safety or Sentiment ranks indicates a fragile or controversial growth story, while consistent growth supported by high Value and Safety ranks points to an exceptional long-term opportunity. A company with rising revenue but stagnant earnings, for example, could be facing rising costs, operational inefficiencies, or competitive pressure. Investors who go beyond the Growth Rank itself and ask these kinds of questions will gain far more insight than those who rely on the number alone. Ultimately, the Growth Rank is not a buy or sell signal; it serves as a starting point. It highlights companies with upward momentum, but momentum alone is not enough. The true value lies in interpreting the rank within a broader context: What is the source of growth? Is it manageable, meaningful, and aligned with the company’s long-term strategy? Are other investors already pricing in that growth, or is the market missing something? Used thoughtfully, the Growth Rank can help investors spot not just fast-moving companies, but those building something enduring.
Defined as:
Revenue (cy) — Revenue (py)
Revenue (py)
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Profit (cy) — Profit (py)
Revenue (py)
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Capital (cy) — Capital (py)
Capital (py)
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Current IV — Original
Original IV
Measures a company’s financial strength based on debt levels, liquidity, and capital structure. Higher ranks signal lower financial risk.
Tracks how fast a company is expanding across key metrics like revenue, profits, and assets compared to its peers.
Evaluates how attractively a company is priced using valuation metrics like earnings, sales, book value, and dividends relative to competitors.
Provides a balanced score that merges Value, Growth, and Safety Ranks for a well-rounded view of a company's financial performance.
Reflects market perception by analyzing investor behavior and recent stock performance relative to peers.
Offers a holistic rating that combines all key Obermatt Ranks: Value, Growth, Safety, and Sentiment for a comprehensive company assessment.
The higher, the better. For every stock, we judge its performance against its peers and rank it on a scale of 1 to 100. These ranks are percentiles: a rank of 75 means the company outperforms 75% of its peers in that specific area. The higher the rank, the better the stock stacks up against its peers.
