2 Mid-Cap Stocks for Long-Term Investors and 1 We Avoid

Mid-cap stocks often strike the right balance between having proven business models and market opportunities that can support $100 billion corporations. However, they face intense competition from scaled industry giants and can be disrupted by new innovative players vying for a slice of the pie.

Luckily for you, our mission at StockStory is to help you make money and avoid losses by sorting the winners from the losers. That said, here are two mid-cap stocks with long growth runways and one that could be down big.

One Mid-Cap Stock to Sell:

Equitable Holdings (EQH)

Market Cap: $12.53 billion

Tracing its roots back to 1859 as one of America's oldest financial institutions, Equitable Holdings (NYSE:EQH) provides retirement planning, asset management, and life insurance products through its two main franchises, Equitable and AllianceBernstein.

Why Are We Out on EQH?

1. Large revenue base makes it harder to increase sales quickly, and its annual revenue growth of 2.2% over the last five years was below our standards for the insurance sector
2. Day-to-day expenses have swelled relative to revenue over the last two years as its pre-tax profit margin fell by 13.3 percentage points
3. Book value per share tumbled by 166% annually over the last five years, showing insurance sector trends are working against its favor during this cycle

Equitable Holdings is trading at $44.20 per share, or 5.9x forward P/E. Read our free research report to see why you should think twice about including EQH in your portfolio.

Two Mid-Cap Stocks to Buy:

Zscaler (ZS)

Market Cap: $25.48 billion

Pioneering the "zero trust" approach that has fundamentally changed enterprise network security, Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS) provides a cloud-based security platform that connects users, devices, and applications securely without traditional network-based security hardware.

Why Should You Buy ZS?

1. Winning new contracts that can potentially increase in value as its billings growth has averaged 26.3% over the last year
2. Sales outlook for the upcoming 12 months implies the business will stay on its desirable two-year growth trajectory
3. Strong free cash flow margin of 29.9% enables it to reinvest or return capital consistently

Zscaler’s stock price of $159.89 implies a valuation ratio of 7.8x forward price-to-sales. Is now a good time to buy? Find out in our full research report, it’s free.

Reddit (RDDT)

Market Cap: $28.69 billion

Founded in 2005 by two University of Virginia roommates, Reddit (NYSE:RDDT) facilitates user-generated content across niche communities (called subreddits) that discuss anything from stocks to dating and memes.

Why Will RDDT Outperform?

1. Has the opportunity to boost monetization through new features and premium offerings as its domestic daily active visitors have grown by 15.9% annually over the last two years
2. Platform’s growing usage and its ability to increase user spending by 45.1% annually showcases its high switching costs
3. Robust free cash flow margin of 25.7% gives it many options for capital deployment, and its growing cash flow gives it even more resources to deploy

At $149.85 per share, Reddit trades at 20.6x forward EV/EBITDA. Is now the right time to buy? See for yourself in our in-depth research report, it’s free.

High-Quality Stocks for All Market Conditions

Your portfolio can’t afford to be based on yesterday’s story. The risk in a handful of heavily crowded stocks is rising daily.

The names generating the next wave of massive growth are right here in our Top 5 Growth Stocks for this month. This is a curated list of our High Quality stocks that have generated a market-beating return of 244% over the last five years (as of June 30, 2025).

Stocks that made our list in 2020 include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+1,326% between June 2020 and June 2025) as well as under-the-radar businesses like the once-micro-cap company Kadant (+351% five-year return). Find your next big winner with StockStory today.