Nokia Oyj (NOK): Among the Best Performing Stocks in Europe
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where Nokia Oyj (NYSE:NOK) stands against other best performing European stocks to invest in.
The world economy is hanging by a thread, as the macroeconomic environment consists of trade wars, retaliatory tariffs, and political unrest in Ukraine and the Middle East. It adds to economic uncertainty, with market experts offering cautious economic forecasts. According to EY, the euro area will experience a modest economic turnaround in 2025, and growth is expected to increase from 0.7% last year to 1.3% and 1.8% in 2025 and 2026, respectively. It is forecasted to simmer down to 1.4% in 2027. Among all European countries, Malta is projected to experience the highest GDP growth in 2025 at 4%. EY expects soft employment growth across Europe, driven by demographic challenges and subdued labor demand. Unemployment will likely remain at 2024 levels. While nominal wage this year will clock in higher than pre-pandemic levels, wage growth will take a hit. Central and Eastern European countries are forecasted to experience relatively higher inflation in 2025, while the overall rate remains just over 2% in the euro area.
Meanwhile, German economic institutes have slashed their growth projections for 2025 to 0.1% from the previous forecast of 0.8% in September 2024. This revised estimate does not incorporate the recent tariffs levied by the US. These tariffs will be a major setback for European economies, possibly toppling them over the edge of recession for the third consecutive year. The new conservative government declared a €500 billion fund to improve infrastructure and defence and stimulate growth. The fiscal package enhances the economic outlook for 2026 and 2027.
However, as the United States is feeling the pressure from high valuations and growing political instability, analysts are looking towards Europe as a better bet for stock investors. Analysts point towards Europe offering a more stable outlook, with lower stock prices, clearer policy direction, and even potential interest rate cuts on the horizon. Investors seem to be shifting their focus, partly because the threat of US tariffs on Europe, especially on automobiles, feels less uncertain now that details are clearer. There is also less exposure to tech in Europe, which is seen as a good thing right now. Europe's markets, with just 10% tech exposure in the Europe 600 compared to 30% in the broader market, look more balanced.
With solid earnings, rising share buybacks, and cheaper stock valuations, investors are turning to Europe. Experts suggest that European and UK markets now have their best shot in years at outperforming the US. With that in mind, let's take a look at the best-performing stocks in Europe so far in 2025.
A computer engineer engaging in coding activities in a brightly lit server room.
To compile our list of the top performing European stocks this year, used the Finviz screener, applying filters for the region and a market cap of over 10 billion to identify stable European companies. Next, we applied a performance filter and selected 11 European stocks with the highest YTD share price growth as of April 11. We have also mentioned the Q4 2024 hedge fund sentiment around the holdings for further insight.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points ().
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 20
YTD Share Price Performance as of April 11: 11.21%
Nokia Oyj (NYSE:NOK) is a Finnish provider of mobile, fixed, and cloud network solutions worldwide. The company operates through four business segments – Network Infrastructure, Mobile Networks, Cloud and Network Services, and Nokia Technologies. NOK offers services like 5G, IP and optical networks, cloud software, and licensing of its patents and brand to telecom providers, governments, and industrial enterprises. It is one of the best performing stocks in Europe.
On March 3, BofA Securities analyst analyst Didier Scemama reiterated a Neutral rating on Nokia Oyj (NYSE:NOK) with a price target of €4.91, up from €4.68. Nokia's recent acquisition of American firm Infinera is expected to strengthen its financial outlook, leading BofA Securities to update their forecasts. They now expect Nokia's revenue to equal €20.8 billion in 2025, growing further in 2026 before a slight dip in 2027.
Nokia Oyj (NYSE:NOK) concluded its share buyback program on April 2, 2025, which was initiated in November 2024 to help offset the dilution from its Infinera acquisition. Between late November and early April, the company repurchased 150 million shares at an average price of €4.69, for a total of roughly €703 million. Nokia plans to cancel these shares later in April. After the buyback, the company now holds just over 220 million treasury shares.
According to Insider Monkey's fourth quarter database, 20 hedge funds were long Nokia Oyj (NYSE:NOK), compared to 16 funds in the preceding quarter. Richard S. Pzena's was the leading stakeholder of the company, with 83.8 million shares valued at $371.4 million.
Overall, NOK ranks 11th among the 11 Top Performing European Stocks So Far In 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of European stocks, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NOK but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this .
READ NEXT: and .
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Nvidia chief calls AI ‘the greatest equalizer' — but warns Europe risks falling behind
PARIS (AP) — Will artificial intelligence save humanity — or destroy it? Lift up the world's poorest — or tighten the grip of a tech elite? Jensen Huang, the global chip tycoon, offered his opinion on Wednesday: neither dystopia nor domination. AI, he said, is a tool for liberation. Wearing his signature biker jacket and mobbed by fans for selfies, the Nvidia CEO cut the figure of a tech rockstar as he took the stage at VivaTech in Paris. 'AI is the greatest equalizer of people the world has ever created,' Huang said, kicking off one of Europe's biggest technology industry fairs. But beyond the sheeny optics, Nvidia used the Paris summit to unveil a wave of infrastructure announcements across Europe, signaling a dramatic expansion of the AI chipmaker's physical and strategic footprint on the continent. In France, the company is deploying 18,000 of its new Blackwell chips with startup Mistral AI. In Germany, it's building an industrial AI cloud to support manufacturers. Similar rollouts are underway in Italy, Spain, Finland and the U.K., including a new AI lab in Britain. Other announcements include a partnership with AI startup Perplexity to bring sovereign AI models to European publishers and telecoms, a new cloud platform with Mistral AI, and work with BMW and Mercedes-Benz to train AI-powered robots for use in auto plants. The announcements reflect how central AI infrastructure has become to global strategy, and how Nvidia — the world's most valuable chipmaker — is positioning itself as the engine behind it. At the center of the debate is Huang's concept of the AI factory: not a plant that makes goods, but a vast data center that creates intelligence. These facilities train language models, simulate new drugs, detect cancer in scans, and more. Asked if such systems risk creating a 'technological priesthood' — hoarding computing power and stymying the bottom-up innovation that fueled the tech industry for the past 50 years — Huang pushed back. 'Through the velocity of our innovation, we democratize,' he told The Associated Press. 'We lower the cost of access to technology.' As Huang put it, these factories 'reason,' 'plan,' and 'spend a lot of time talking to' themselves, powering everything from ChatGPT to autonomous vehicles and diagnostics. But some critics warn that without guardrails, such all-seeing, self-reinforcing systems could go the way of Skynet in ' The Terminator ' movie — vast intelligence engines that outpace human control. 'Just as electricity powered the last industrial revolution, AI will power the next one,' he said. 'Every country now needs a national intelligence infrastructure.' He added: 'AI factories are now part of a country's infrastructure. That's why you see me running around the world talking to heads of state — they all want AI to be part of their infrastructure. They want AI to be a growth manufacturing industry for them.' Europe, long praised for its leadership on digital rights, now finds itself at a crossroads. As Brussels pushes forward with world-first AI regulations, some warn that over-caution could cost the bloc its place in the global race. With the U.S. and China surging ahead and most major AI firms based elsewhere, the risk isn't just falling behind — it's becoming irrelevant. Huang has a different vision: sovereign AI. Not isolation, but autonomy — building national AI systems aligned with local values, independent of foreign tech giants. 'The data belongs to you,' Huang said. 'It belongs to your people, your country... your culture, your history, your common sense.' But fears over AI misuse remain potent — from surveillance and deepfake propaganda to job losses and algorithmic discrimination. Huang doesn't deny the risks. But he insists the technology can be kept in check — by itself. 'In the future, the AI that is doing the task is going to be surrounded by 70 or 80 other AIs that are supervising it, observing it, guarding it, ensuring that it doesn't go off the rails.' The VivaTech event was part of Huang's broader European tour. He had already appeared at London Tech Week and is scheduled to visit Germany. In Paris, he joined French President Emmanuel Macron and Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch to reinforce his message that AI is now a national priority. — Chan reported from London.
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Wall Street on Edge: Inflation Spike, $58B Debt Test, and Trade Turmoil Collide
Wall Street is holding its breath as two market-moving forces line up: inflation and debt. Investors are watching closely as the U.S. and China restart trade talks in London, aiming to ease tensions and avoid another round of tariff escalations. Meanwhile, a $58 billion Treasury auction could test demand for U.S. debt at a time when long-end yields hover near 5%a level many thought would spark broader market reactions. BMO's Ian Lyngen calls this week's combo of May CPI and Treasury supply a tradable event, with core inflation expected to accelerate to 2.9% year-over-yearthe first uptick of the year. The S&P 500 (SPY) sits roughly 2% from its February peak, but volatility could return fast depending on how these numbers land. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 5 Warning Sign with META. Despite the rebound from April's tariff-driven slide, institutional investors have yet to jump back into equities in full force. Deutsche Bank notes that institutional positioning has been this low less than a quarter of the time since 2010. JPMorgan and Barclays, however, suggest the tide could be turning, with more big money managers set to ramp up equity exposure. That shift hasn't shown up yetBank of America's clients were net sellers last week, with institutions pulling out while hedge funds and retail buyers stepped in. Strategist Jill Carey Hall thinks the market may have already priced in much of the deglobalization risk, but not the potential upside from underappreciated tax policy tailwinds. On the corporate front, action is heating up. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) isn't grabbing headlines today, but its peers are moving fast. Meta's (NASDAQ:META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg is going all-in on artificial general intelligence, quietly assembling a powerhouse team to build out the next big wave in AI. Boeing (NYSE:BA) just secured its biggest monthly order tally in over a yearmuch of it inked during President Trump's trip to the Middle East. Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) is rolling out new AI-powered upgrades across its networking portfolio to stay competitive in the enterprise race. Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM) posted a 40% revenue surge in May as chipmakers rushed to build inventory ahead of potential trade roadblocks. Not everything was rosyMcDonald's (NYSE:MCD) was slapped with a rare sell rating from Redburn Atlantic, and Citigroup (NYSE:C) is preparing to book hundreds of millions more in loan loss provisions, signaling early cracks in consumer credit health. This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
TSMC (TSM) Reports 40% Revenue Surge in May as AI Chip Demand Booms
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) is one of the 1. On June 10, the company reported its May revenue, which surged 40% year-over-year to NT$320.5 billion ($10.7 billion) as demand remained high for its AI chips. The contract chipmaker, which supplies to tech giants such as Apple and Nvidia, had its revenue up 39.6% from a year earlier but down 8% from April's figure. According to TSMC's CEO C.C. Wei, April softening was seasonal, and the company is ramping advanced nodes to ease bottlenecks. Its capacity expansions in Arizona and Taiwan are progressing according to plan. Moreover, new EUV tools and packaging lines are launching to boost throughput for the latest H100 and next-gen Gaudi GPUs. A macro view of a 5G/4G chips and modules, displaying the cutting edge technology of the company. Back in March, Wei joined President Donald Trump in announcing his intent to invest $100 billion in U.S.-based chip-manufacturing facilities. He acknowledged TSMC's projection of 'full-year 2025 revenue to increase by close to mid-20s percent in U.S. dollar terms' in the company's first-quarter earnings call in April. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) manufactures and sells advanced chips used in artificial intelligence applications. While we acknowledge the potential of TSM as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: and Disclosure: None. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
