The stock market has a history of rewarding patient investors with blockbuster returns. It's the ultimate vehicle for generating long-term wealth, even when investing conservatively in a diversified index like the S&P 500, which has grown by 3,740% since 1981. 

But even that dizzying return has been crushed by some individual stocks -- mainly in the technology sector -- that have delivered game-changing products and services over the years.

We're still in the early innings of the current decade, but here are two stocks that could run circles around the broader market between now and 2030.

A happy family sitting on the couch viewing a tablet device.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. The case for Sea Limited

When it comes to the digital economy, Singapore-based Sea Limited (SE 4.34%) is a triple threat. It operates in three of the hottest sectors in the technological realm: Mobile gaming, e-commerce, and digital payments. 

Its gaming brand is titled Garena, and it boasts over 729 million quarterly active users. It's primarily driven by its Free Fire mobile game, which surpassed 1 billion downloads this year and recently notched a record-high 150 million daily active users. The game was released in 2017, and yet is still growing in popularity.

While gaming falls under Sea's largest segment by revenue, digital entertainment, its e-commerce piece is almost equally as formidable. The company's Shopee app connects buyers and sellers with a hybrid consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer model, and it is consistently in the top two most downloaded apps globally in Alphabet's Google Play store, and Apple's App Store. 

Together with its fintech business that now supports over 39 million users, Sea Limited's brand portfolio has combined to generate hyper-growth. 

Metric

2018

2021 (Estimate)

CAGR

Revenue

$1.04 billion

$9.16 billion

106%

Data source: Sea Limited, Yahoo! Finance. CAGR = compound annual growth rate. 

For a stock to rise fivefold by 2030, it would need to grow revenue by a compound annual rate of about 20%, assuming its present price-to-sales ratio remained exactly the same. Sea Limited is trouncing that growth rate, which could present a big opportunity for investors.

While the company isn't profitable just yet, it's expected to inch much closer to breakeven in 2022 while surpassing $13 billion in revenue. It shouldn't be long before investors reap the added benefits of positive earnings

A smiling person opening their online shopping order at home.

Image source: Getty Images.

2. The case for Amazon

Amazon (AMZN 1.30%) needs little introduction. Since the company listed publicly in 1997, its stock has risen a mind-bending 203,000%, so I'm not exactly going out on a limb by predicting another 400% return between now and 2030. 

But Amazon is a far more mature group of businesses now than it was 24 years ago. It carries significantly less risk to investors because it's now highly profitable, as opposed to being in the start-up phase. The downside is that its growth trajectory won't be anything like it was in the formative years, but it's certainly growing fast enough to generate a fivefold return within the current decade. 

Metric

2017

2021 (Estimate)

CAGR

Revenue

$177.8 billion

$470.4 billion

27%

Earnings per share

$6.15

$40.94

60%

Data source: Amazon, Yahoo! Finance. CAGR = compound annual growth rate.

While the company is best known for its e-commerce business -- which is responsible for almost half of all the online sales in the entire U.S. -- its Amazon Web Services (AWS) segment is a bigger highlight in terms of growth right now. AWS is the world's leading provider of cloud computing, with over 200 different services available for businesses, and on a trailing-12-month basis, its revenue has grown 34%, which outpaces overall revenue growth.

AWS is also significantly more profitable, with a 30.3% operating margin in the recent third quarter, compared to just 1.3% for Amazon's North American e-commerce business. As AWS continues to grow into a larger piece of the overall company, it should therefore also result in faster-growing earnings per share. That could open up a smoother pathway to fivefold returns by 2030.

Amazon has grown so dominant that it's going to be extremely difficult for emerging companies to compete with, so its current position as one of the five largest listed companies in the U.S. should remain solidified over the long term. 

That makes the stock one of the safer bets for outsized returns in the long run.