:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/GettyImages-2225279620-2231f155810d4a3590d4b81b0d15004e.jpg "This Consumer-Products Giant’s Stock Is a Wall Street Top Pick for 2026")
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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.
“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.
