A healthier option than the Magnificent 7? Meet Europe’s ‘Granolas’

The Magnificent 7 tech stocks have been a big part of the extraordinary US market rally. But there’s a rival group of companies powering European stocks to new heights with even better returns, by some measures.

The Magnificent 7 tech stocks have been a big part of the extraordinary US market rally. But there’s a rival group of companies powering European stocks to new heights with even better returns, by some measures. Dubbed the “Granolas,” those 11 companies accounted for 60% of the gains on Europe’s benchmark stock index over the past 12 months. They have even slightly outperformed the Magnificent 7 over a longer period, according to Goldman Sachs. The Granolas — an acronym coined by the bank in 2020 to describe Europe’s biggest companies by market capitalization at the time — comprise GSK, Roche, ASML, Nestlé, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, L’Oréal, LVMH, AstraZeneca, SAP and Sanofi. “They are a large part of the reason why European equities have performed well despite lackluster domestic GDP,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a note earlier this month that highlighted their outsized gains. They praised the companies’ “strong earnings growth, low volatility, high (and) stable margins, and strong balance sheets.” Over the past three years, investors in the Granolas have enjoyed a total return — which includes share price gains and dividends — of 65% on average, slightly above the 64% delivered by the Magnificent 7, Goldman Sachs analyst Guillaume Jaisson told CNN Tuesday. In his calculations, Jaisson adjusted the performance of each stock to reflect its weight in the Stoxx Europe 600 index or the S&P 500 index based on its market cap.