Wall Street’s Top Pick for 2026: This Consumer-Products Giant’s Stock Is Set to Dominate

Forget the usual suspects—Wall Street's crystal ball is pointing toward an unexpected heavyweight for 2026.

The Unlikely Alpha Generator

While fintech buzz and crypto volatility dominate headlines, institutional analysts are quietly placing big bets on a legacy titan. It's not a flashy tech startup; it's a consumer-products behemoth with the kind of cash flow that makes venture capitalists weep. The thesis? In a world chasing digital moonshots, boring might just be the new brilliant.

Steady Wins the Race

The playbook here is classic: dominant market share, pricing power, and a dividend that actually gets paid. It's the antithesis of speculative frenzy—a bet on resilience when the next 'black swan' event inevitably sends tech portfolios into a tailspin. Analysts are banking on its global supply chain and brand loyalty to act as a fortress in uncertain times.

The Cynical Take

Let's be real—this pick reeks of a fund manager covering their bases. After missing the last three tech rallies, recommending a 'safe' blue-chip is the financial equivalent of ordering a salad at a steakhouse. It might look responsible, but everyone knows you're just saving room for dessert elsewhere. Still, in 2026's predicted economic chop, this stock could be the life raft while the crypto yachts take on water.

Key Takeaways

• Colgate-Palmolive is poised to recover in 2026 after its sales growth slowed and stock fell in 2025, Morgan Stanley analysts wrote.
• The analysts named the company their top pick in the Household & Personal Care segment, and said they expect sales to grow faster than competitors this year.

Morgan Stanley analysts named a consumer products giant known for its toothpaste one of their top picks for the year.

Colgate-Palmolive (CL) is now the analysts' top pick in the Household & Personal Care sector, as they expect the company's sales growth to recover in 2026 after a "below-plan 2025." The analysts maintained their "overweight" rating and $87 price target for Colgate-Palmolive stock, putting them roughly in line with Visible Alpha's Wall Street average and suggesting a 13% premium to yesterday's close.

The company behind a range of personal care and cleaning products, among dozens of other brands, saw the larger consumer packaged goods (CPG) sector go through "category weakness" in 2025, the analysts said. A strong 2024 also made for difficult comparisons and slower market share gains in its key categories, Morgan Stanley said.

Why This Matters to Investors

Wall Street is broadly bullish on shares of Colgate Palmolive. The consumer products giant's shares fell by double-digit percentage points in 2025, but Morgan Stanley analysts see them rising some 13% this year, in line with Wall Street's mean forecast.

After organic sales growth reached what the analysts think is the low point in the company's last quarterly results in October, at 0.4%, they now see Colgate-Palmolive as poised to grow organic sales at a faster rate than its competitors in the coming quarters.

The analysts said they see projections of 3% organic sales growth and 6% earnings per share growth for 2026 as "reasonable," but expect the company to be conservative in its outlook when it reports fourth-quarter results.

Entering 2026, the analysts said Colgate-Palmolive is poised to post increasingly strong organic sales growth thanks to easy comparisons in 2025, growth in its developing markets, an expected recovery in market share in its key oral care segment, among other factors.

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"None of these factors outside of comparisons are significant in isolation, but taken together they create a clear path to reaccelerating Colgate [organic sales growth] above peers," the analysts wrote.

Colgate-Palmolive shares ROSE 5% Thursday to north of $81, but are still down about 7% in the last 12 months. They fell a bit more than 10% last year.