Take advantage of current opportunities: L Oréal and Air Liquide - positive upward phases!

Take advantage of current opportunities: L Oréal and Air Liquide - positive upward phases!

According to a report by www.aktienwelt360.de,

As we investors know, the stock market is definitely a two-way street. And so it is certainly the order of the day that the major indices are subject to more or less large fluctuations. Of course, this also applies to the shares included in the index.

However, if individual stocks have opened up and gone into an upward movement, this can sometimes last a little longer. That's why today we're looking at two European values ​​where you could potentially jump on the bandwagon without much risk.

L'Oréal

This is certainly a pleasing constellation that was observed at L’Oréal (WKN: 853888) last year. The French cosmetics manufacturer was able to sell more products here despite higher prices. A high level of awareness and popular brands make customers dig deeper into their pockets. Germany, Switzerland and Austria in particular drove growth. Business in Europe is going so well that L’Oréal has put three additional production lines into operation at its German location in Karlsruhe. It is therefore not at all surprising that record results are expected for the past financial year. According to forecasts, the net result could be just above the 6 billion euro mark for the first time in 2023. And a further increase in profits is also forecast for the next two years, which should then reach almost 7.5 billion euros in 2025. L’Oréal continues to show decent profitability with an average five-year net margin of 13.90%. In addition, last year we were able to achieve a higher free cash flow of EUR 6.6 billion than expected for net profit. Already in mid-October last year, the L'Oréal share started a nice upward movement and reached a new all-time high of 452.20 euros on December 29, 2023. However, it is currently trading slightly lower at 438.65 euros (January 8, 2024). What remains is to look at the valuation, which is based on the expected profit for 2023 at a P/E ratio of 37. Given the good medium-term prospects, this does not seem to me to be too high a value. If anything, it probably shows the trust of investors, who apparently have a lot more confidence in the L'Oréal share.

Air Liquide

The shares of the industrial gas producer Air Liquide (WKN: 850133) are also in an upward phase. However, this started in October 2022. The shares reached their previous high on December 13, 2023 with a price of 180.84 euros. At the start of the year, things went down a little again and the current price level is 171.48 euros (January 8, 2024). What certainly drove the price here too is the fact that Air Liquide also set a new record for net profit last year. At almost 3.4 billion euros, according to MarketScreener estimates, it will not only exceed 3 billion euros for the first time, but also be over 20% higher than in 2022. It is expected to continue to rise in the medium term and reach a total of almost 4 billion euros in 2025. If you look back into the past, you can see that the producer of industrial gases has been growing continuously for a very long time. Over the last 30 years, both sales and profits have increased by an average of 7% per year. Despite the positive price development, the Air Liquide share currently has, in my opinion, a moderate valuation with a P/E ratio of 26. This could give us an indication that there may still be a lot of room for improvement in the price development. The second aspect, in my opinion, is the future growth prospects, which in turn could further boost the share price.