Investors understand that when you extend your time horizon into decades with high-quality businesses, the power of compound growth can work wonders. This is why it’s so beneficial to be a long-term owner of companies, allowing their improving fundamentals to positively impact your portfolio. This strategy is far more consistently reliable than constantly trying to time the market.
With this perspective in mind, there are definitely some businesses that have generated tremendous wealth for their long-term shareholders. In fact, here’s one stock that over the course of the past 28 years would have turned a $1,000 initial investment into a holding worth more than $1 million.
Image source: Getty Images.
Becoming one of the world’s dominant enterprises
Since this company’s initial public offering in May 1997, its shares have produced an unbelievable return of 217,000%. Had you been able to allocate $1,000 to this stock when it went public, you’d be staring at a balance of nearly $2.2 million today.
The company in question is none other than Amazon (AMZN -1.38%). Its journey — characterized by constant innovation and pushing the envelope — has been nothing short of spectacular.
Amazon started out in the mid-1990s selling books online. While this was a narrow focus, it was a revolutionary idea at the time. The company wanted to stick to a product category that was easy and low-risk to ship, and one that had a massive selection of items for shoppers to choose from.
Over time, Amazon evolved to start selling virtually anything under the sun, and it continues to expand its footprint. In December, for example, the business launched a partnership that allows consumers to buy new Hyundai vehicles on its e-commerce site. The entire car-buying process, from arranging financing to scheduling the delivery from a nearby dealer, can be handled on Amazon.
The company enticed shoppers to spend more money on its site by pioneering fast, free shipping, and offering it as a perk of its Prime membership program in 2005. Today, it is estimated that there are more than 200 million Prime members across the globe.
In 2006, the company began offering Amazon Web Services (AWS) to external customers. Management realized that other businesses might need solutions to scaling IT infrastructure based on changing needs — the same issue Amazon faced with its e-commerce operation. In 2024, AWS generated $108 billion of revenue and $40 billion of operating income. It is the world’s largest cloud-computing infrastructure provider and a major artificial intelligence (AI) platform.
Thanks to the tremendous amount of traffic Amazon.com gets these days, as well as the success of the Prime Video streaming platform, Amazon has become an advertising juggernaut. During the first quarter of 2025, it collected $13.9 billion in digital ad revenue.
What the future might hold
With a market capitalization of $2.3 trillion and trailing-12-month revenue of $650 billion, Amazon has grown into a colossal entity and delivered incredible gains to its long-term shareholders. But it would be unreasonable to expect it to do anything similar in the future — it’s already one of the five largest companies in the world. Growth can’t continue at a rapid pace indefinitely, and given Amazon’s current scale, there are limited opportunities for it to do things that could move the financial needle.
That doesn’t necessarily mean Amazon isn’t a worthy investment candidate, though. According to Wall Street consensus analyst estimates, its revenue is projected to increase at a compound annual rate of 9.5% between 2024 and 2027. That’s certainly an encouraging sign.
Even better, its bottom line is soaring thanks to cost cuts and operational efficiencies. Diluted earnings per share (on a split-adjusted basis) went from $3.21 in 2021 — and a $0.27 loss in 2022 — to $5.53 in 2024. Those impressive gains make the current valuation reasonable, in my view. As of June 19, the stock trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 34.3.
Amazon won’t turn a $1,000 investment into $2.2 million over the next 28 years. However, this business should be on every long-term investor’s radar.
John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Neil Patel has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.