Wednesday is the day when Marty McFly and Doc visited 2015 in “Back to the Future Part II.”

Trey Williams wrote about how 2015 really looks, when compared with the “future” that McFly experienced back in 1985, focusing on biometric-payment authentication.

It’s easy to point out how a writer or filmmaker may have “gotten the future wrong,” but it’s also fun to look at how McFly might have gotten rich if he made the right investments at the start of the 30-year period. It turns out that if he followed his fashion instinct, he would have struck gold.

Marty McFly’s choice of sneakers was prophetic. Everett Collection

Here are the 10 S&P 500 stocks that have performed best since Oct. 26, 1985 (the date Doc told Marty to fly to 2015 with him to help Marty’s children), with dividends reinvested:

Thirty years is a long time, but those are some pretty amazing numbers, showing how much money can be made if a company has a strong management culture. While it’s not really a fair comparison, the S&P 500 returned 2,139% over the same period, according to Morningstar.

Nike Inc. NKE, +9.07% has been the best performer among S&P 500 SPX, -0.32% stocks, with a total return of 46,922%. That means an investment of $10,000 on Oct. 26, 1985, would have been worth $4.69 million as of Tuesday’s market close.

And Marty McFly was on to something. He wore Nike sneakers in 1985, and wore some spiffy new ones when visiting “the future” of 2015.

McFly not only wore Nike sneakers in 1985, he wore them on his hoverboard when visiting 2015. Everett Collection

Of course, McFly probably wasn’t thinking of picking stocks during his adventures, but his obvious fashion sense might have sparked his curiosity and made him plenty of money in the long run.

You might be wondering how this information might help you. Can you still make money on these stocks?

Here’s how those companies stack up today:

S&P 500 company Sales per share - most recent reported quarter Sales per share - year earlier Change in sales per share Nike Inc. Class B $9.64 $9.03 7% UnitedHealth Group Inc. $42.90 $33.38 29% Kansas City Southern $5.75 $6.13 -6% Paychex Inc. $1.99 $1.83 9% Wells Fargo & Co. $4.45 $4.21 6% Progressive Corp. $8.58 $8.02 7% Lennar Corp. Class A $10.81 $8.82 22% Intel Corp. $2.97 $2.88 3% McCormick & Co. $8.20 $7.98 3% M&T Bank Corp. $9.10 $8.98 1% Source: FactSet

Sales growth often drives stocks more than earnings growth. Focusing on sales per share can help investors because any dilution to the shares from stock issuance to pay for acquisitions, executive awards or other stuff is “baked in,” as is any reduction in the share count from stock buybacks.

Here are consensus price targets and forward price-to-earnings ratios for the group:

S&P 500 company Closing price - Oct. 20 Consensus price target Implied 12-month upside potential Share of analysts with ‘buy’ ratings Forward P/E ratio Nike Inc. Class B $132.37 $138.52 5% 84% 27.1 UnitedHealth Group Inc. $120.42 $144.65 20% 85% 16.5 Kansas City Southern $88.66 $100.50 13% 48% 17.8 Paychex Inc. $50.41 $47.21 -6% 9% 22.9 Wells Fargo & Co. $53.08 $58.90 11% 59% 12.0 Progressive Corp. $32.94 $30.76 -7% 30% 16.4 Lennar Corp. Class A $51.82 $53.75 4% 33% 13.7 Intel Corp. $33.44 $34.57 3% 53% 14.3 McCormick & Co. $82.35 $83.38 1% 18% 22.0 M&T Bank Corp. $115.50 $129.55 12% 36% 13.5 Source: FactSet

The forward P/E ratios are the stock prices divided by consensus 2016 earnings estimates, among analysts polled by FactSet. In comparison, the S&P 500 trades for 15.9 times the weighted aggregate of consensus 2016 earnings estimates.

These price targets and estimates only take you out a year or so. That may seem like a long period for an investment, but it really isn’t. The astounding returns for Nike and the other companies over the past 30 years show how a long-term vision and strategy can really pay off for investors who keep the faith.