Posted by Joseph Y. Calhoun, III

Back in the early 70s, a group of fifty stocks came to be known as the Nifty Fifty. No one seems to know where the original list came from, although Kidder Peabody is most often mentioned as the source. Morgan Guaranty was also mentioned as a source in several Forbes articles of the period. These companies were considered so well run that they were called “one decision” stocks - buy and hold. They became so popular that their price to earnings ratios rose to unheard of heights at the time. They all crashed (as did most everything else) in the bear market of 1973.

Now HSBC has developed a new list of a global Nifty Fifty. Some of the originals are on the new list (via The Economist HT: Doug Terry)

1. McDonald’s (MCD)
2. Walt Disney (DIS)
3. Coca Cola (KO)
4. Schering Plough (SGP)
5. Pfizer (PFE)
6. Wyeth (WYE)
7. Merck (MRK)
8. Johnson and Johnson (JNJ)
9. General Electric (GE)
10. MMM (MMM)

The rest of the list includes:

1. Walmart (WMT)
2. Proctor & Gamble (PG)
3. Colgate Palmolive (CL)
4. Monsanto (MON)
5. JP Morgan (JPM)
6. Bank of America (BAC)
7. Amgen (AMGN)
8. Caterpillar (CAT)
9. Schlumberger (SLB)
10. Exxon Mobil (XOM)
11. Oracle (ORCL)
12. Microsoft (MSFT)
13. Cisco (CSCO)
14. Exelon (EXC)
15. Samsung
16. Li & Fung
17. Canon (CAJ)
18. ICBC
19. China Steel
20. Sinopec (SHI)
21. ZTE
22. TSMC (TSM)
23. Nintendo
24. Infosys (INFY)
25. Tesco
26. Nestle
27. LVMH
28. Diageo (DEO)
29. Banco Santander (STD)
30. AXA (AXA)
31. Roche
32. Fresenius (FMS)

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to locate the rest of the list. If anyone out there has access to the other 8 names, please pass them along in the comments.