The management team at Cognex (NASDAQ: CGNX) believes the machine vision specialist can grow its revenue at a 15% annualized rate over the long term. Unfortunately, that's not the growth rate the company will hit this year or even in 2023, according to Wall Street. The analysts' consensus forecast is that revenue will be more or less flat at around $1 billion from 2021 to 2023.

That said, no one buys a growth stock expecting it to deliver strictly linear growth, and buying when the market is fearful is often a good idea for long-term investors. Here's why I think that's the case for Cognex. 

Despite its near-term problems (more on those in a moment), Cognex still has enormous long-term growth potential. 

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Source Fool.com