5 Stocks That Could Make You Rich

The goal of every investor should be to find and invest in great companies -- but not all great companies have what it takes to make you millions. That said, when you find a company with a world-class business model, huge growth opportunities, and shares that trade at a bargain, that could be a recipe for life-changing wealth.

Our Motley Fool contributors went hunting for stocks that they think fit that bill, and they settled on CareTrust REIT (CTRE 0.38%), LGI Homes, Inc. (LGIH +1.48%), Facebook (FB +1.35%), Intercept Pharmaceuticals (ICPT +0.00%), and Kite Pharma (NASDAQ: KITE). Read on to see if these potential millionaire-making stocks are right for you.

IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

A company set to profit from a huge long-term trend

Jason Hall (CareTrust REIT Inc.): One of the biggest demographic shifts happening right now is the retirement and aging of the baby boomer generation. The oldest boomers are in their 70s now, while the youngest are now less than 15 years from retirement age.

And in order to care for and house this generation as it ages, America will need a lot more rehab, assisted living, and skilled-nursing facilities over the next 30 years:

Image source: CareTrust REIT presentation. 

This creates an excellent opportunity for CareTrust REIT to grow much larger than its current 153 locations -- and for long-term investors to benefit in a very big way from that growth. So far this year alone, CareTrust has added a huge number of facilities to its portfolio, buying 35 new properties and signing long-term leases with the healthcare companies that operate them. 

There are some risks investors must consider.

First, the company will largely use debt and stock offerings to pay for its growth, and if the company can't generate a high-enough rate of return on those new investments, then existing shareholders won't get enough benefit from the dilution or the cost of debt. 

Second, CareTrust is heavily dependent on two tenants (one of which CareTrust was spun out of a couple of years ago), that together account for about three-fourths of the company's business. The good news is that the company has made major progress over the past year in reducing its exposure to these two tenants through its expansion efforts. 

If management can deliver solid returns on capital for the long term and continue diversifying its portfolio away from a few tenants, then this is definitely the kind of stock that could make you rich.  

This homebuilder can help build your portfolio

Daniel Miller (LGI Homes Inc.): One stock that's been on my watchlist for a while is LGI Homes, a residential building company engaged in the design, construction, marketing, and sale of new homes in a slew of popular markets covering 63 active selling communities with a focus on Texas, the Southwest, and the Southeast.

The company focuses on entry-level homebuyers and has been profitable every year since its inception in 2003, consistently growing its closings, revenue, and profits. LGI Homes, through the first 11 months of 2016, has closed 3,696 homes, which is nearly a 25% increase over the first 11 months of last year. Its top and bottom lines tell a similar story.

LGIH data by YCharts.

The reason LGI Homes could make you rich in the long run is that it's not just your traditional homebuilder: It has unique marketing efforts and training that have proven to drive results. While most homebuilders will wait for buyers to approach them or rely on realtors, LGI Homes sends a weekly distribution of more than 400,000 (a figure that's even a year outdated) direct mailings to renters within a 25-mile radius of its active communities. Its effective marketing, its premium market selection, and its growth prompted Professional Builder Magazine to name LGI Homes its 2016 Builder of the Year.

There is plenty of room for LGI Homes to expand by opening new and targeted communities with favorable supply and demand with large rental populations, both within its existing market footprint and in new areas. Although I've merely scratched the surface of LGI Homes, I'm convinced it has great potential. 

Facebook is still very young

Evan Niu, CFA (Facebook): The social network may already be a heavyweight tech giant, but in the grand scheme of things, investors need to remember that Facebook is still incredibly young and new to the public market. From a financial perspective, Facebook is also still meaningfully smaller and younger than ad rival Alphabet (GOOG 0.23%) (GOOGL 0.27%). For instance, compare a few metrics for both companies:

Data source: Reuters. TTM = trailing 12 months.

Facebook is growing faster than Alphabet, catching up in terms of the overall revenue base. Notably, Facebook is also more profitable, in part because it doesn't invest in as many "moonshots" (i.e., far-fetched side projects) as Alphabet does, therefore more of its future revenue growth will trickle down to the bottom line. The internet is becoming an increasingly social environment, and Facebook has cemented itself as the dominant force in social networking. Despite Alphabet's best efforts to compete, it has failed to displace Facebook. If Facebook is set on a trajectory to become comparable with Alphabet in terms of revenue base and market cap over time, which evidence suggests it will, then there's still a lot of upside for Facebook, even as shares trade near all-time highs.

IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

A one-of-a-kind drug

Sean Williams (Intercept Pharmaceuticals): While I strongly want to emphasize the "could" part of stocks that "could" make you rich, Intercept Pharmaceuticals has all the hallmarks of a company that could skyrocket in the years to come.

The key to Intercept's success lies with Ocaliva, a treatment with only one Food and Drug Administration-approved indication at the moment (primary biliary cholangitis, or PBC). Its approval for PBC came in late May, and according to Wall Street analysts, it could generate peak sales of around $300 million from the indication.

But, to be crystal clear, PBC is peanuts compared to Ocaliva's potential as a treatment for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). NASH is a liver disease that can lead to fibrosis of the liver, liver cancer, and even death. It's estimated that 2 million or more adults in the U.S. could have an advanced form of the disease, and there are currently no FDA-approved drugs designed to treat it. That's where Ocaliva comes in.

Two years ago, Intercept Pharmaceuticals announced impressive data in its phase 2b FLINT trial of Ocaliva as a treatment for NASH. It easily met the primary endpoint of a two-point-or-greater reduction in NAFLD Activity Score (46% for Ocaliva compared to 21% for the placebo), and it led 35% of patients to a mean score benefit in liver fibrosis compared to 19% for the placebo. This latter component was the trial's secondary endpoint. Intercept is currently enrolling patients for its phase 3 REGENERATE study, with completion of that enrollment expected in the first half of next year. A new drug application, assuming positive clinical results, could happen by the second half of 2018.

The one question mark is Genfit, which has a competing treatment for NASH also in phase 3 trials (RESOLVE-IT). Genfit anticipates filing for an NDA in the fourth quarter of 2018. There's absolutely an advantage in terms of market share for the first drug that makes it to pharmacy shelves. If Ocaliva is that drug, it could have peak sales potential in NASH of $3 billion or higher.

Thus the formula is simple: If Ocaliva succeeds and beats Genfit's NASH hopeful to market, investors could get rich.

Changing cancer care

Todd Campbell (Kite Pharma): Fad stocks can make you poor as quickly as they can make you rich, so when I'm hunting for stocks that can make you rich, I'm far less interested in what stocks are "hot" today and far more interested in what companies could disrupt growing markets over time.

One of my favorite disruptive companies is Kite Pharma, a clinical-stage biotech that's developing revolutionary new ways to battle cancer.

Because a larger, longer-living global population means that the number of cancer cases is climbing and current treatments continue to fall short for many patients, there's a huge unmet need for new cancer drugs that work better. 

That unmet need creates a big opportunity for Kite Pharma and its chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies (CAR-T) that re-engineer a patient's T-cells so that they can find and kill cancer cells.

Earlier this month, Kite Pharma announced a 76% response rate to KTE-C19, its lead CAR-T, and based on that success, management plans to complete a filing for KTE-C19's approval early next year. If the FDA signs off on KTE-C19, then it could begin changing how doctors treat tough-to-treat cancer as soon as next year.

Initially, KTE-C19's use would be in patients with relapsing or resistant non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. However, studies that could expand its use into other cancers, and earlier into treatment, give this drug billion-dollar blockbuster potential. If KTE-C19 is a hit, then buying Kite Pharma for the long term when its market cap is just $2.25 billion could end up being very profit-friendly.