Over the last decade, the S&P 500 has grown around 60% total. While that does include the financial crash of 2008, the market has grown modestly since its pre-crash 2007 highs 10 years ago. However, the three stocks below each blew right past the market to post a more than 1,000% gain during the last decade -- and they could all have plenty of growth potential from here.
3 stocks with 1,000% growth
| Company | Market Cap | 10-Year Share Price Growth |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon.com | $409 billion | 1,290% |
| NetEase | $39 billion | 1,512% |
| Ulta Salons | $18 billion | 1,022% |
Data source: Yahoo! Finance.
Amazon.com (AMZN 1.66%) might be an obvious choice for a list like this as its stock has continued to grow by leaps and bounds, especially in the last few years, as it successfully disrupts industries like retail, media, and many others. In 2016, the company grew sales to $136 billion, about 13 times annual sales notched in the company's more humble days in 2006. As a result, the stock is up nearly 1,300% in the last decade.
What's next for Amazon? Currently, about two-thirds of Amazon's sales are made in the U.S., but the company is investing heavily to grow its international operations with focus on key areas such as India, which could lead to massive new opportunities for rapid growth. The company has a lot of moonshot projects now as well, including package delivery drones. One such project that's turned out to be highly successful is Amazon Web Services. AWS provides cloud-based information technology to enterprises, and in 2016, Amazon grew AWS sales more than 50% to roughly $12 billion, or about a tenth of total sales, and that revenue is likely to continue climbing quickly.
An Amazon package delivery drone. Image source: Amazon.com.
NetEase (NTES 2.19%), the Chinese internet conglomerate that owns various online media brands, e-commerce services, and email providers, has been even more impressive than Amazon by gaining more than 1,500% in the last 10 years. NetEase has been a great play for the growing Chinese internet market, which continues to boom as smartphones make it possible for more of the population to get access to the web. By most recent count, more than 700 million people in China had internet access, but that is still just over half of the population, and that penetration rate is expected to continue growing rapidly in coming years.
One of NetEase's most successful ventures has been creating and/or distributing online gaming, which has led to a good deal of success in recent years. The company has created many of its own games and is also the distributor of games from major labels like Activision Blizzard. Even with rising earnings -- which were up more than 72% in 2016 over 2015 -- NetEase still looks reasonably cheap at just 23 times earnings, and less than 17 times forward earnings estimates.
Image source: Ulta.
Finally, there's Ulta Salon, Cosmetics, and Fragrance (ULTA 0.74%), which is the operator of nearly 1,000 locations across the U.S. While perhaps not as interesting in terms of technology as the two other companies on this list, Ulta is one of the most compelling growth companies because has been succeeding in an industry that has been mostly in decline (largely thanks to Amazon), where retailers are scrambling to regain traffic and maintain margins in the face of necessary discounting.
Ulta has largely bucked the trend of woe-is-me retail by providing in-store experiences such as product demonstrations and salon-services that have helped same-store sales to continue climbing by double digits year over year, while also creating a robust and growing e-commerce presence. The brand has also created a loyalty program, which grew 28% in 2016 to nearly 24 million members. The benefits of the loyalty program seem to have gone a long way toward keeping customers in its ecosystem instead of venturing to other online outlets.
Looking ahead, Ulta has updated what it thought could be a future store count of around 1,200 locations in the U.S., to as much as an eventual 1,700 -- and that's not including the brand's international aspirations. Ulta's stock is already up more than 1,000% in the last 10 years, but just like Amazon and NetEase, this stock looks to have plenty of growth opportunity left.
