If you had invested $10,000 in Nvidia (NVDA 1.03%) 10 years ago, your shares would be worth a mind-blowing $503,000 today. This staggering gain is the sort of investment that changes lives.
So, are there still opportunities like this in today's market? Surely. The only question is: Which stock is the next Nvidia? I think the answer might be cloud data analytics company Snowflake (SNOW 1.66%).
Image source: Getty Images.
Revenue growth fuels stock price gains
For a stock to generate anywhere near a 5,000% return, it needs growth -- and lots of it. Consider Nvidia. It grew its quarterly revenue at an average rate of 26% for 10 consecutive years.
NVDA Revenue (Quarterly YoY Growth) data by YCharts.
Snowflake's recent quarterly revenue growth is actually much higher than Nvidia's long-term average. The challenge for Snowflake will be maintaining its spectacular revenue growth for years.
The cloud computing market is enormous; Snowflake will need to capture a significant portion of that market if it wants to match Nvidia's impressive 10-year revenue growth average.
What about its market cap?
Powerful revenue growth can drive a company's stock price higher. Still, there is another question to consider: Can Snowflake match Nvidia's incredible 5,000% return over 10 years? Snowflake's market cap is $48 billion; it's not a small-cap stock.
NVDA Market Cap data by YCharts.
A 5,000% increase in Snowflake's market cap would make it a $2.5 trillion company. Today, only one company has a market cap above $2.5 trillion: Apple.
However, that doesn't mean Snowflake couldn't be that large 10 years from now. Remember, 10 years ago, Nvidia's market cap was $8.7 billion -- nowhere near its current market cap of $424 billion. Back in 2012, there was only one American company with a market cap above $500 billion: Apple.
In short, it would be preposterous to suggest that Snowflake could reach a market cap of $2.5 trillion next year. But it's not inconceivable that it could reach that level a decade from now. Nvidia has shown it's possible.
Is Snowflake a buy now?
Whether Snowflake will bag a return of 5,000% or more, the real question is if the stock is worth buying now. I think it is. Snowflake operates on the cutting edge of cloud data analytics. As organizations continue to produce ever-more data, Snowflake's services will become even more popular as they allow institutions to sort, sift, and draw conclusions using all of their data. And that should result in a big win for Snowflake investors over the next decade -- maybe even matching Nvidia's success.
