Your eyes are not deceiving you. This really has been a challenging year on Wall Street. Since the major U.S. indexes hit their respective highs between November and the first week of January, the iconic Dow Jones Industrial Average, widely followed S&P 500, and growth-focused Nasdaq Composite, shed as much as 19%, 24%, and 34% of their value. You'll note the magnitude of these declines firmly placed the S&P 500 and Nasdaq in a bear market.
Superficially speaking, bear markets aren't much fun. The velocity of downside moves can be unnerving, and big drops can be unpredictable over the short run. But when examined with a wider lens, bear markets are the ideal opportunity to go shopping. Every major decline in the broader market throughout history has eventually been put into the rearview mirror by a bull market. The same should be true for the current decline.
Image source: Getty Images.
It's an especially good time to go bargain hunting for growth stocks that may have been disproportionately beaten down during the current bear market. What follows are three colossal growth stocks that have the potential to turn a $250,000 initial investment into $1 million by 2030.
Teladoc Health
The first phenomenal growth stock with the tools and intangibles necessary to quadruple long-term investors' money over the next eight years is telehealth giant Teladoc Health (TDOC 2.46%).
As a general rule, healthcare stocks are viewed as a safe place to put your money to work when volatility arises. No matter how well or poorly the U.S. economy and stock market perform, people will always be in need of prescription drugs, medical devices, and a variety of healthcare services. This provides a base level of demand for a host of healthcare stocks.
The biggest hurdle for Teladoc is going to be overcoming the view that it's nothing more than a COVID-19 pandemic fad stock. The skeptics' view has been reinforced by Teladoc's massive first-quarter writedown of $6.6 billion that appears to be tied to its pricey acquisition of applied health signals company Livongo Health in 2020.
However, the vast majority of data shows that Teladoc is much more than a fad. Rather, it's revolutionizing how personalized care is administered in the United States.
The first thing to consider is that Teladoc averaged 74% annual sales growth over the six years leading up to the pandemic. Fad stocks don't average 74% annual revenue growth. This pretty clearly demonstrates that Teladoc's services were becoming mainstream well in advance of the pandemic.
Something else to note is that Teladoc's virtual-visit platform is providing benefits up and down the treatment chain. It's far more convenient for patients to consult with physicians from the comfort of their homes. It's also easier for physicians to keep tabs on chronically ill patients with telehealth services. Being able to regularly receive data on chronically ill patients should improve patient outcomes. Ultimately, this should lead to lower expenses for health insurers. You can rest assured that anything which lowers health insurer costs will be heavily promoted by the industry.
Even Teladoc's pricey acquisition of Livongo Health should eventually pay dividends. Livongo was profitable prior to its acquisition, and its services are targeted at patients with a host of chronic illnesses. The ability for Teladoc and Livongo to cross-sell on each other's platforms, coupled with the long-term revenue potential in helping chronic patients lead healthier lives, provides Teladoc with 20%+ annual sales growth potential and makes the company a vital part of the personalized healthcare experience in the U.S.
Planet 13 Holdings
A second colossal growth stock that can turn $250,000 into a cool $1 million by the turn of the decade is small-cap U.S. marijuana stock Planet 13 Holdings (PLNH.F).
It's not much of a secret that U.S. pot stocks have been a buzzkill since February 2021. The expectation had been that a Democrat-led Congress, coupled with Joe Biden taking the Oval Office, would usher in an array of cannabis reforms. The reality has been that the pandemic and other issues have taken precedence. We appear no closer to federal legalization or even cannabis banking reform than we were during the Trump administration, and Wall Street clearly isn't happy with this lack of progress.
On the other hand, cannabis stocks have shown that federal legalization isn't necessary for them to succeed. To date, around three-quarters of all states have legalized cannabis in some capacity, with 19 states also giving the green light to adult-use consumption. Translation: There are ample opportunities for companies like Planet 13 to thrive.
What makes Planet 13 so special is the company's retail model. To date, it's opened two SuperStores. The company's flagship store is just west of the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada and spans 112,000 square feet. Its other SuperStore is located in Santa Ana, Calif., about 10-15 minutes from Disneyland, and it spans 55,000 square feet. The sheer size, selection, and nostalgia these stores offer is simply unmatched in the cannabis retail space.
The Las Vegas SuperStore is truly a marvel. The company is leaning on self-pay kiosk for repeat visitors, has laid out its highest margin product near the front of the store and close to checkout registers, and has afforded customers with personal budtenders to show them around the nation's largest cannabis store.
Planet 13's next step is expansion. While it's retaining its SuperStore blueprint in a few tourist-heavy markets, the company is angling to bring a more community-store feel to the Florida marijuana market. Florida's weed market is expected to be the third-largest in the U.S. by 2024.
With a retail model that hasn't been duplicated, Planet 13's push to recurring profitability looks set to occur by no later than next year.
Image source: Getty Images.
The third colossal growth stock that can turn $250,000 into $1 million by 2030 is social media company Pinterest (PINS 1.02%).
The clear concern with Pinterest is that the U.S. economy may be headed toward a recession. First-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) retraced 1.6%, and the Atlanta Federal Reserve's GDPNow forecast for the second quarter has deteriorated to a decline of 1.6%. if accurate, back-to-back GDP drops would signal that the U.S. economy has been in a recession since the year began. Companies reliant on ad revenue, such as Pinterest, are often the first to take it on the chin during recessions.
However, Pinterest's headwinds look largely overblown if you take the time to dig beyond the surface.
As an example, Wall Street has been worried about Pinterest's monthly active user (MAU) drop from 478 million in the March 2021-ended quarter to 433 million MAUs in the March 2022-ended quarter. Not only is there a reasonable explanation for this drop -- COVID-19 vaccination rates picked up and people chose to get out of their homes more often -- but panning out five years shows that MAU growth remains on an upward trajectory.
To build on this point, vacillations in the company's MAUs hasn't adversely impacted Pinterest's ability to generate money from its users. During the first quarter, a 45-million-MAU decline from the prior-year period still translated into a 28% global rise in average revenue per user (ARPU). Pinterest's ability to grow ARPU is especially strong in overseas markets. What this persistent double-digit ARPU growth suggests is that merchants are willing to pay a premium to reach the company's 433 million MAUs.
Investors shouldn't be worried about data-tracking changes introduced by Apple, either. While iOS data-privacy changes could prove challenging for certain social media companies, Pinterest's entire platform is based on users willingly and freely sharing the things, places, and services that interest them. These pins allow merchants to accurately target users, and it should set up Pinterest to become an e-commerce leader by the end of the decade.
With Pinterest fully capable of sustaining a 20% (or greater) sales growth rate, a forward-year price-to-earnings ratio of 19 seems far too inexpensive for such an innovative online business.
