There is a small, exclusive group of companies with market caps above $1 trillion. Over time, more corporations will join this elite club. However, joining this clique is just one (albeit an impressive) milestone. Investors want to find companies that can perform well over the long run, even with market caps above $1 trillion. That's what makes Eli Lilly(NYSE: LLY) and Visa(NYSE: V) attractive. These companies have a real shot at crossing the $1 trillion mark by 2030 and look likely to deliver strong returns long after that.
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1. Eli Lilly
Eli Lilly is one of the largest healthcare companies in the world and sports a market cap of just under $737 billion as of this writing. Getting to the $1 trillion mark from these levels in about five years might not seem impressive. However, the drugmaker will face several headwinds. First, marketwide issues could slow Eli Lilly's growth. The threat of tariffs is real for pharmaceutical companies, too. Second, Eli Lilly's shares look expensive based on traditional valuation metrics. The company's forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is 35.4, almost twice the average for the healthcare sector, which is 16.
At these levels, anything short of flawless execution might sink Eli Lilly's shares. That's what happened after it released its first-quarter update. That said, Eli Lilly could still hit the $1 trillion mark. It needs a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.3% to do so by 2030. That's below the market's historical performance, and Eli Lilly is no average company. And despite its high forward P/E, the drugmaker is worth a premium considering it has been growing its revenue and earnings much faster than its similarly sized peers. The stock should perform well beyond 2030 thanks to its impressive innovative abilities.
With a constellation of investigational weight management medicines, the company seems to be running circles around its competitors, including Novo Nordisk. Eli Lilly's latest major clinical update was for orforglipron. This potential oral GLP-1 medicine could steal significant market share from the current leaders, which are administered subcutaneously. The weight loss market will grow substantially in the next five years. Few companies should benefit as much as Eli Lilly.
Further, the company's lineup features medicines beyond its core areas of diabetes and anti-obesity. It boasts blockbusters in immunology and oncology as well. We can say the same about Eli Lilly's pipeline. Here, too, diabetes and anti-obesity projects take center stage, but the company also has exciting programs in other areas. Eli Lilly's investigational gene therapy for deafness looks particularly promising. Lastly, Eli Lilly is a strong dividend growth stock. Reinvesting the dividend will help boost what should already be superior returns. Investors shouldn't buy Eli Lilly's shares because it will likely become a trillion-dollar stock soon. The company's long-term prospects make a far more compelling buy-and-hold case.
2. Visa
Visa, a leading payment technology company, has a market cap a bit under $679 billion. Achieving a market cap of $1 trillion by 2030 would be more of an accomplishment for Visa than for Eli Lilly. The financial services specialist needs a CAGR of 8.1%. That's still not extraordinary by equity market standards, though. Visa will have to deal with the same marketwide issues as everyone else in the medium term, but it is well equipped to do so. Consider that the company makes money by collecting fees for the transactions it helps facilitate. Inflation will lead to higher fees since these are calculated as a percentage of the transaction.
So if tariffs lead to higher prices, that might actually be good for Visa, all else being equal. A recession might lead to a slowdown in economic activity, harming the business, but Visa can navigate such temporary slowdowns. The company has performed well over the past five years despite the pandemic and significant economic problems.
Visa should keep it up over long periods, which is why it is a stock worth considering for investors focused on the long game. The company dominates its field and has only one noteworthy direct competitor, Mastercard. One reason Visa has been so successful and has few direct challengers is its strong network effect. Businesses have to cater to consumer preferences, and the more consumers there are using Visa-branded credit cards, the more attractive the company's network is to merchants. It will be challenging to disrupt the Visa and Mastercard duopoly. In the meantime, there is still plenty of whitespace in the industry.
Between cash and checks still being displaced by credit and debit in retail activity where all of these are legitimate options, and e-commerce (where cash is not an option) gobbling up more retail activity, Visa has significant growth prospects. Lastly, it is a top income stock, too. Visa has increased its dividends by almost 392% in the past decade. Even if Visa falls short of the trillion-dollar mark by 2030, investors who buy the stock and park it in their portfolios for good will eventually be glad they did so.
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Prosper Junior Bakiny has positions in Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Mastercard and Visa. The Motley Fool recommends Novo Nordisk. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
