How TIME and Statista Determined America’s Growth Leaders of 2026
TIME and Statista have published the first edition of “America’s Growth Leaders,” a ranking of the top performing publicly listed companies in the U.S., identified through a comprehensive analysis of three key factors: Growth Performance, Financial Stability and Stock Performance.
Methodology
The first dimension, Growth Performance, was assessed using data from Statista’s revenue
database, which contains company growth data for the last five years. To be considered for the
evaluation the companies had to be headquartered in the U.S., publicly traded, and demonstrate
strong revenue growth in the last five years. Relative growth and the number of years in which
growth was achieved were considered in the evaluation.
The second dimension, Financial Stability, was investigated by analyzing the companies’
profitability as well as using classic metrics such as the Piotroski F-Score and Altman Z-Score, which refer to a company’s overall financial health and the probability to file for bankruptcy.
Industry specific KPIs were utilized to portray financial stability of companies within the banking, insurance and REIT sector.
The third dimension, Stock Performance, was evaluated based on multiple KPIs that underline the
companies’ strengths as a stock investment. The analysis process focused on the average annual
growth rate, recent returns, a comparison to the overall market and the stocks’ volatility for the
past 5 years.
Once the data was collected and evaluated, it was consolidated and weighted within a scoring model. The scores of all three dimensions were added on an equal percentage basis to form the final ranking score of a maximum of 100 points. The 501 companies with the highest score were
awarded as “America’s Growth Leaders of 2026” by TIME and Statista.