I checked my portfolio twice last week, which is twice as much as I usually do in a given month. That’s what a wobbly market does to you; it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been investing, a string of red days makes you want to look even when looking doesn’t actually help. If you’ve caught yourself doing the same thing lately, you’re not alone, and you’re not wrong to be paying closer attention. The Nasdaq-100 has been sliding since its early October peak, and it’s worth knowing exactly how far it would need to fall to officially enter a correction, and why that number matters less than you would think for the right kind of stock.
The Nasdaq-100 hit a record high of about 31,360 in early October, and a correction is conventionally defined as a drop of at least 10% from a recent high, which in this case works out to roughly 28,225. As of Oct. 30, the index sat in the neighborhood of 28,600, meaning it’s more than halfway to correction territory. Here’s the part that trips up a lot of people: hitting that number on a single gloomy afternoon and bouncing back the next morning isn’t really what’s called a correction. The term is generally reserved for a decline that sticks around, where the index trades below that threshold for a meaningful stretch rather than just tagging it and reversing. A one-day air pocket is noise. A sustained slide is a different animal, and it’s the one that actually changes how cautious investors should be.
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Image source: Getty Images. Why the number matters less than the business behind the stock
None of this movement is a reason to panic, and it’s definitely not a reason to avoid buying good companies in November. A correction is a statement about sentiment and price, not necessarily about whether the businesses underneath those prices are working. If you’re buying a stock because you believe in what it’s building during the next five or 10 years, a pullback is a time to buy. With that in mind, here are three consumer growth stocks whose fundamentals look strong enough to buy into, regardless of what the Nasdaq-100 does next.
1. e.l.f. Beauty: one acquisition, two growth engines
e.l.f. Beauty (NYSE: ELF) bought Hailey Bieber’s Rhode brand in August 2025, and the deal has been paying off in a real way: in fiscal 2026 (ended March 31) net sales rose 25% to $1.64 billion, with Rhode contributing $293.5 million of that increase, and the most recent quarter saw total sales climb 36%. The company raised its full-year forecast again on the back of it. The honest caveat is that e.l.f.’s original namesake brand has been softer lately, so this is a two-engine growth story right now rather than one firing on all cylinders, but a company that can successfully fold a billion-dollar acquisition into double-digit percent growth is doing something right.
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2. Freshpet: still winning new people
Freshpet (NASDAQ: FRPT) makes refrigerated dog and cat food, and its growth story is refreshingly simple: more households are buying it, and they’re buying more of it. Second-quarter net sales rose 16%, with volume, not price, doing nearly all of the work, and the company added roughly 800,000 new households year over year while expanding into about 700 new rural lifestyle retail stores. Management raised its full-year sales growth projection to between 10% and 12%. This isn’t a hype stock, it’s really just a boring company steadily converting pet owners one fridge at a time.
3. Celsius Holdings: messier, but building something real
Celsius Holdings (NASDAQ: CELH) is the riskiest of the three, and I won’t pretend otherwise: its core Celsius-branded energy drink declined roughly 12% last quarter, per Food Dive, and the stock dropped sharply after an earnings miss. But the sales at the acquired Alani Nu brand grew 21% as it moved onto PepsiCo’s (NASDAQ: PEP) distribution network, and the company is buying backing its own stock with a $300 million authorization.
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Micah Zimmerman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Celsius Holdings, Freshpet, and e.l.f. Beauty. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
3 Growth Stocks to Buy in November, Even if the Nasdaq-100 Enters a Correction was originally published by The Motley Fool