What Are European Blue Chip Stocks?
While there is no precise definition of what makes a blue chip stock, a blue chip stock tends to be stocks of well-known, high-quality companies that are leaders in their industries. Most of these companies have paid and increased their dividends for many years as well, a signal of financial strength and stability.
Many blue chip stocks have produced long records of attractive returns based on solid business models, and made them a popular group of stocks for conservative investors to look at.
Finding Blue Chip Dividend Stocks
Blue chip dividend stocks have generally proven to be some of the most durable companies around and interesting to conservative investors with a buy-and-hold strategy. While blue chip stocks are not always a great investment, they are a good starting place to look for high-quality stocks.
The term “blue chip stocks” comes from poker and is probably first used in the 1920s by Oliver Gingold, a Dow Jones reporter. In poker, the chip with the highest value is a blue chip. While there is no precise definition of what makes a blue chip stock, they are typically large in size (e.g. market caps exceeding $50 billion) and have a leading role in the economy with stable earnings even during recessions.
We base the European Blue Chip stocks as companies that are a member of the EuroStoxx 50 index and pay a dividend:
This list can be a good place to get ideas for your research on European blue chip dividend stock. It is important to remember that analyzing dividend growth streaks is backward-looking and not automatically a guarantee for future returns and dividends. In Europe dividend often pay only once or twice per year dividend.
Investors should look beyond high-yielders and assess the business model and the company’s fundamentals such as free cash flow, payout ratio.
European Blue Chip Stocks
The 20 European blue chip stocks with the highest dividend yields are presented in the table below. Since the European Central Bank demanded banks & financial institutes to postpone their dividends, we excluded the FS sector from this list.
The list below shows the ten European blue chip stocks with the largest market cap at the moment of writing.
- The Dividend Aristocrats Index is based on 64 companies part of the S&P 500 and with 25+ years of consecutive dividend increases.
- The Dividend Kings List is even more exclusive than the Dividend Aristocrats. It is comprised of less than 20 businesses with 50+ years of consecutive dividend increases.
- The MoneyInvestExpert Defensive Aristocrats is a performance-based top-10 selection of the Dividend Aristocrats to outperform the market in the long-term.
- Portfolio lists like the Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio or Bill Gates’stock portfolio can be a source.
- For the European focused investors, there is also the list of European Dividend Aristocrats.
- Dividend Champions are not necessarily members of the S&P 500 index, have increased their dividend for 25 or more consecutive years.
- 100+ years of dividend, the list of stocks that pay over 100 years of dividend can be a list of inspiration.
- Blue Chips stocks from the US or the European ones.
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Blue Chip Stocks FAQ’s
What stocks are considered blue chip?
While there is no precise definition of what makes a blue chip stock, a blue chip stock tends to be stocks of well-known, high-quality companies that are leaders in their industries.
What are the top 10 European blue chip stocks?
The top 10 European blue chip stocks based purely on market cap are LVMH, SAP, L’Oreal, ASML Holding, Unilever, Sanofi, Linde , Siemens, Anheurser-Bush InBev and Total SA.
What are the top 10 European blue chip stocks with the highest yield?
The top 10 blue chip stocks based on dividend yield are Telefonica, Total, Engie, Eni, BASF, Orange.
What are European blue chip stocks examples?
Examples of European blue chip stocks are BMW, BASF, Nokia, Unilever, Sanofi, Danone, Telefonica, Eni, SAP, Volkswagen.
How many European dividend blue chip stocks are there?
The total number of European blue chip stocks depends on the criteria used to define a blue chip stock. If you take for example the EuroStoxx 50 there are 50 companies.
