For the past 17 months, Wall Street could seemingly do no wrong. Since hitting its pandemic bottom on March 23, 2020, the benchmark S&P 500 has more than doubled in value.
Although some investors might be leery about putting money to work in the stock market with the widely followed S&P 500 near an all-time high, history has shown time and again that buying great companies and hanging onto them for long periods of time is a strategy that's produced countless winners.
In fact, the following four amazing stocks have the potential to make investors millionaires by the midpoint of the next decade. If you have $150,000 to invest, these innovative companies could turn your initial investment into $1 million by 2035.
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Square
Don't be fooled by fintech stock Square's (SQ -1.97%) monster rally since the pandemic bottom. While it could undergo small periods of underperformance to the broader market, the company's two core revenue drivers offer more than enough potential to turn a $150,000 investment into $1 million in 14 years, or less.
For more than a decade, Square's seller ecosystem has been its foundational operating segment. This is the operating division that provides point-of-sale devices, loans, and analytics to merchants to help grow their business. In the seven years leading up to the pandemic, gross payment volume on its payment network grew by an annualized average of 49% to $106 billion. With larger merchants utilizing the platform, Square's seller ecosystem is a good bet to deliver higher gross profit over time.
What's far more exciting over the long term is Square's digital peer-to-peer payments platform Cash App. In just three years, Cash App's monthly active user count more than quintupled to 36 million. Even more impressive, Square is generating $55 in gross profit per user, while spending only around $5 to attract each new user. With Cash App offering multiple new sales channels, it should become Square's leading profit generator.
The icing on the cake is the recently announced acquisition of buy now, pay later company Afterpay, which'll link Cash App to the seller ecosystem. By the midpoint of the next decade, Square may well be a $1 trillion company.
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EverQuote
On the other end of the spectrum is online insurance marketplace EverQuote (EVER -3.62%), which clocks in at a market cap of just over $600 million, as of Sept. 8. Despite insurance and advertising being relatively boring industries, EverQuote offers sustainable double-digit potential for a long time to come.
According to EverQuote, the U.S. insurance industry is slated to grow by an annual average of 4% through 2024. By comparison, digital ad spend within the insurance industry should grow by 16% annually over the same time frame. This is where EverQuote is making its home.
For consumers, EverQuote's online marketplace is providing a way to quickly price-compare policies from all but one of the 20 major auto insurers in the United States. Approximately 20% of the people who price-shop on EverQuote's marketplace will make a policy purchase. Meanwhile, for insurers, it's bringing them highly qualified and motivated consumers. Instead of wasting their ad dollars, insurers are getting more bang for their buck on EverQuote's targeted marketplace.
Best of all, the company is expanding into new verticals, such as home, rental, life, health, and commercial insurance, which have collectively been growing at a faster pace than its auto marketplace. With insurance ad dollars clearly shifting to digital platforms, EverQuote is perfectly set up to thrive.
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Redfin
Another amazing stock that can make patient investors millionaires by 2035 is technology-driven real estate company Redfin (RDFN 0.57%).
I know what you're probably thinking: "Won't higher mortgage rates put a dent in Redfin's growth rate?" While higher mortgage rates over the long run should be the expectation, two significant differentiating factors for Redfin will allow it to outperform its traditional competition, and thusly maintain a superior growth rate.
First, there's the cost-savings Redfin can provide. Traditional real estate companies charge a listing fee/commission of between 2.5% and 3%. By comparison, Redfin charges its clients 1% or 1.5%, depending on how much previous business was done with the company. As home prices have soared nationwide, the value of these savings has been magnified. Considering that Redfin's share of U.S. existing home sales has nearly tripled since the end of 2015, it's pretty clear that buyers and sellers value these savings.
Second, Redfin offers a number of services aimed at personalizing the buying or selling experience. It's helped buyers through the pandemic with 3D and virtual tours. Meanwhile, for sellers, it offers its Concierge service, which helps with staging and upgrades to maximize the selling value of a home. There's also RedfinNow, which purchases homes for cash in select markets, thereby removing the haggling and hassle that comes with selling a home. This personalization should ensure continued rapid growth for Redfin.
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Cresco Labs
The marijuana industry also has the potential to make millionaires out of investors. If you put $150,000 to work in U.S. multistate operator (MSO) Cresco Labs (CRLBF -4.11%) right now, there's a very real possibility it could be worth $1 million by 2035.
Over the past six months, Wall Street has clearly been worried about the lack of progress on the cannabis legalization front in the U.S. However, MSOs like Cresco Labs don't need federal reform measures to be successful. With 36 states already legalizing pot in some capacity, marijuana stocks are in great shape.
What makes Cresco Labs such an intriguing buy is its dual approach to growth. Like most MSOs, it has a growing retail presence. Following the closing of its Cultivate acquisition in Massachusetts, Cresco has approximately three dozen open dispensaries. Although many of these retail locations are in big-dollar markets, Cresco has been mindful to target states where license issuance is limited. In doing so, it's ensuring that it'll have ample opportunity to build up its brand(s) and garner a loyal following without being overrun by a pot stock with deeper pockets.
Cresco Labs' not-so-subtle secret weapon is its industry-leading wholesale segment. Acquiring Origin House in early 2020 allowed Cresco to get its hands on a highly coveted cannabis distribution license in California. This license allows it to place third-party and proprietary pot products into more than 575 dispensaries throughout the Golden State. As a result, it should be one of the fastest-growing pot stocks of the decade.
