Morgan Stanley analyst Yohei Yamada drew comparisons with the US Nifty Fifty and Japan's growth companies, compiling a list of the businesses in the MSCI Japan index that have bucked the market trend and delivered profit in 18 out of the past 21 years. The list included the Central Japan Railway Company, Toyota Tsusho Corporation, Mitsubishi, Suzuki Motor, Honda Motor and Osaka Gas.
To make the list, the stocks also must have had profit growth in at least eight of the past 20 years and an average rate of at least 5pc over that period. This compares with the index average of a loss of 0.4pc.
So which stocks will make up the next Nifty Fifty?
The Morgan Stanley analysts reckon that Europe exhibits many of the hallmarks of the boom years of the Nifty Fifty in the US and Japan and that conditions are ripe for genuine growth stocks to flourish.
Ronan Carr, an analyst, said: "The transition from the credit supercycle to secular deleveraging, sovereign debt concerns and low-trend growth in developed markets all make a secular bull market unlikely, in our opinion. With no underlying secular support in such a market environment, equities track closely the swings in broader growth expectations. This was evidently the case in the late Sixties and Seventies and in Japan in the last 20 years."
The investment bank suggests that a new Nifty Fifty will have strong emerging market connections. Mr Carr added: "Superior emerging market growth continues to be one of the most identifiable structural themes in our opinion. Over the next three to five years, we expect emerging markets to be the major growth engine in the world."
Morgan Stanley advised investors to look out for companies that were innovative, dominant in their chosen sector and have high exposure to emerging markets. European companies with the highest exposure to emerging markets ? as well as Brazil, India and China ? included Nokia, Essar Energy, Unilever, Volkswagen, LVMH Mo�t Hennessy Louis Vuitton and supermarket group Casino.
The bank also recommended companies with accelerated revenue growth, such as Centrica, EDF Energy and Imperial Tobacco. Finally, the bank highlighted stocks with above-average profit growth but with low levels of volatility. These stocks included Capita Group, SABMiller, Tesco, AstraZeneca and Associated British Foods.
Comparisons between the sideways moving S & P 500 in the Sixties and Seventies, the Nikkei of the past 10-year period and the current situation in the UK are easy to draw.
Despite periods of growth, the FTSE 100 is at the same level now as it was three years ago. Economists' predictions for the UK are uninspiring ? Bank Rate will remain low, growth will be subdued and market volatility will continue.
"There is too much political noise at the moment," said Mark Dampier of Hargreaves Lansdown. "If it is not the eurozone, it's the US. If it is not the US, it is China. Every time a politician opens their mouth, the market jumps or crashes. We have to take a long-term approach and pick quality stocks with strong balance sheets which will weather the storm."
Mr Dampier said that this was an approach Bill Mott, manager of the PSigma Income Fund, had been employing for the past two years. He also said Nick Train had a similar philosophy for his Lindsell Train Global Equity fund.
Buying and holding on to quality growth stocks that promise long-term returns as the Nifty Fifty did may be a stable strategy, but identifying those stocks is not easy.
Many sectors and indeed indices are sensitive to contagion from the European debt crisis, as well as fluctuations in commodity prices and currency wobbles.
Mr Mott favours defensive UK stocks that benefit from inflation rises. Though he recently trimmed his exposure, he still holds National Grid, Unilever and British American Tobacco.
He said: "We are excited that there are still so many companies across diverse sectors that are offering well-covered dividends. This yield availability is not from companies most at risk in a downturn, but is available in large multinationals that have strong balance sheets and good pricing power. These are exactly the companies we would want to own in the current market environment and, with these thumping yields, we're being paid to do so."
Mr Mott also tipped the pharmaceuticals sector, in particular GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Roche.
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