The shares that rocketed over the past decade - but which markets delivered most 'ten-baggers'?

The FTSE 100 has hit a series of record highs, surpassing 9,000 points for the first time in July, and then breaking through 9,100.

Despite a slip-up at the end of last week, the FTSE 100 still closed at 9,067. Already, bulls will be setting their targets on the 10,000-point mark in the years to come.

The FTSE 100 has grown by more than 10 per cent this year so far, while the FTSE 250 is up almost 7 per cent.

The standout big name performer this year has been Rolls-Royce, with the engineer's shares up 78 per cent since the start of 2025 - and an astonishing 1,100 per cent over the past five years.

Yet for investors looking strike it rich on a true gold mine stock over the long term, the UK might not be the place to look.

Analysis from IG, shared exclusively with This is Money, suggests that investors hoping to find a 'ten-bagger' stock should be looking across the pond - where they are 22 times more likely to find a higher performer than in the UK.

A ten-bagger is a stock that multiplies its value tenfold over a ten-year period, delivering a 1,000 per cent or higher gain.

While Rolls-Royce has ten-bagged from its lows, just a single main market UK stock proved to be a ten-bagger over the decade-long period that IG looked at: Warhammer maker, Games Workshop.

The firm returned 3,109 per cent during the period, according to IG analysis covering the S&P 500, Europe's Stoxx 600 and the UK's FTSE 350 over the ten years from the end of June 2015 to the end of June 2025, based on share price gains alone.

The Nottingham-based firm, which only joined the ranks of the FTSE 100 in December last year, is something of an unlikely British success story.

In June 2015, Games Workshop shares were worth around 500 pence each, having languished under the £10 market since the 1990s, before booming in the past decade.

Games Workshop's impressive return places it as the ninth highest growing ten-bagger in the list.

> How Games Workshop transformed into a miniature wargames giant

However, its growth still pales in comparison with US darling Nvidia, with the chipmaker and largest company in the world rising an eye-watering 29,959 per cent since 2015.

The S&P 500 had 23 ten-baggers in total, including Advanced Micro Devices, rising 5,254 per cent, and Axon Enterprise, which increased 2,237 per cent.

Other big US names like Tesla and Netflix also made it into the list.

Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said: 'Every investor dreams of finding the next Apple or Nvidia - stocks that transform portfolios with tenfold returns. But those headline-grabbing success stories are far more common in the US than in the UK.

'While American markets boast the world's biggest tech giants, the FTSE 100 is still dominated by more traditional names which don't always fire the imagination in the same way.'

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Even mainland Europe far outweighs the UK, with 14 of the Stoxx 600 delivering tenfold returns over the decade.

Dutch biotech firm Argenx SE grew 4,535 per cent over the period, while German defence frim Rheinmetall AG has risen 3,585 per cent since 2015.

IG said Europe's ten-baggers are noticeably more diversified than the US' tech-heavy winners, although still mainly focused around tech and healthcare.

Of course, IG's analysis only includes 350 UK stocks, compared to 600 for Europe and 500 for the US.

Still, the UK's lag on high growth stocks comes amid continued concerns that London is no longer a competitive market, and fewer companies are choosing to bet on going public in the UK.

This year so far, some 70 companies have left the UK market, while over recent years big names have fled the UK, with the likes of chipmaker Arm and gambling firm Flutter betting on the US, while most recently UK fintech Wise has said it plans to move its listing to New York.

Beauchamp added: 'To change that, the UK needs to do more to attract and retain high-growth companies, particularly in tech and innovation.

'That means making London a more appealing place to list - and encouraging a shift in corporate culture, with more focus on long-term reinvestment and growth rather than just delivering dividends.'