Dutch stocks: ASML isn't alone at the top

2026-10-19 · By Lubin Danilo, founder of Lubin Investment

Of ten Dutch stocks screened, two score 9 out of 10: ASML and ASM International, ahead of Wolters Kluwer (8) and Adyen (7). But quality costs: only Heineken trades below my buy price, 6% under it. ASM International is the most demanding, 86% above that price.

What are the best Dutch stocks today?

I ran ten Amsterdam-listed stocks through the grid I use everywhere. On one side, a quality score out of 10, built on concrete criteria: profitability, sales and cash growth, share buybacks, debt. On the other, separately, a buy price: the maximum price I would pay to aim for a 15% annual return over five years. A note on method: these are the names my tool could load on 19 October 2026. ING, Universal Music, Randstad and BE Semiconductor did not respond that day, so the sample is not exhaustive.

The result fits in one sentence: Amsterdam has very good companies, and almost none of them is cheap. Here is the table, best rated first, with the price compared to my buy price.

Company	Score	Price (euros)	Buy price (euros)	Price vs buy price
ASM International	9	755	406	86% above
ASML	9	1,477	1,298	14% above
Wolters Kluwer	8	84	78	9% above
Adyen	7	940	159	read with caution, see below
Ahold Delhaize	6	32	27	21% above
Prosus	6	36	19	86% above
Heineken	5	76	81	6% below
Akzo Nobel	4	58	35	66% above
Philips	4	23	not usable	not usable
ABN Amro	4	40	10	bank, comparison not meaningful

Nine out of ten trade above my buy price. That is not a verdict on their quality: it shows the market already knows these companies are good and prices them accordingly. Each line deserves its own reading.

ASML or ASM International: which one is more demanding?

ASML is known to everyone: it is the only company in the world making extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, which are essential to etch the finest chips. Its sales rose from 21.2 billion euros in 2022 to 32.7 billion in 2025, and its free cash flow (the money left after every bill is paid and the machines are funded) from 7.2 to 11.6 billion. The path was not straight: free cash flow fell to 3.3 billion in 2023. The share count is slowly shrinking, from 395 to 387 million over the period, thanks to buybacks.

Its price sits at a little over 50 times its free cash flow, in the upper part of its own history (67th percentile: the stock has been cheaper two thirds of the time). It trades 14% above my buy price, a gap I find reasonable for a monopoly of this quality.

ASM International is the quiet cousin. It makes other machines in the same chain, those that deposit layers of atoms one by one on chips (atomic layer deposition). Its sales climbed from 2.4 billion euros in 2022 to 3.2 billion in 2025, its free cash flow from 0.44 to 0.84 billion, with an almost flat share count (49 million). In the second quarter of 2026, according to its 28 July release, revenue reached 1,003 million euros, above the midpoint of its range, with record free cash flow of 355 million and an adjusted operating margin of 33%.

The problem is the price. The stock is valued at about 63 times its free cash flow and trades 86% above my buy price. Management expects a second half more than 20% above the first: the market has already priced that promise. Exceptional quality, almost no margin for error. If demand for AI memory chips slows, the price will say so before the results do.

Wolters Kluwer: why does it look cheap against its own history?

Wolters Kluwer sells software and information databases to lawyers, accountants and healthcare professionals. It is my best Dutch score outside semiconductors, 8 out of 10, and the easiest to understand: 85% of its revenue is recurring, meaning subscriptions that renew every year. An accounting firm that built its procedures on these tools does not switch supplier to save a few percent.

The numbers describe a steady machine. Sales rose from 4.6 billion euros in 2020 to 6.1 billion in 2025, the free cash flow margin reaches 22%, and the share count fell from 265.6 to 229.6 million between 2020 and 2025, 13.6% fewer: each remaining share is a bigger slice of the company. In the first half of 2026, published on 5 August, organic growth reached 5% and recurring cloud software 14%, with the adjusted operating margin up 100 basis points.

The price is the interesting part. The stock is valued at about 14 times its free cash flow, which puts it among the cheapest 9% of its own history. Why? Because the market fears that artificial intelligence will commoditise simple access to legal or tax information. The fear is partly founded, and management did lower expectations for its performance and ESG division. Still, I think Wolters Kluwer's edge lies less in the information itself than in its integration into clients' daily work tools. It still trades 9% above my buy price: not a screaming bargain, but the closest to a fair price for real quality. You can redo the exercise on the Wolters Kluwer page.

Is Adyen the expensive fintech people think?

Adyen processes online and in-store payments for large brands. Its net margin exceeds 40% (out of 100 euros of revenue, 40 end up as profit), and its revenue grew from 0.7 billion euros in 2020 to 2.4 billion in 2025. In the first half of 2026, net revenue reached 1.3 billion euros (+19%) on 804 billion of processed volume, and management raised its growth outlook to 21 to 23%.

My buy price for Adyen, 159 euros, is far below the price (940), but I do not take it literally. My model extrapolates the trend in cash per share, which is down 22% a year over the period, and that cash is unusually irregular: about 1.9 billion euros in 2022, 0.9 in 2025. For a payments company, free cash flow moves with the merchants' money passing through, which makes it hard to read year to year. That is my reading, not the company's explanation. The real finding: Adyen is a quality company (7 out of 10) whose price assumes growth above 20% will last. It has almost no debt, which is an asset, not a price.

Ahold Delhaize: average quality, but it buys back its shares

Ahold Delhaize runs supermarkets in Europe and the United States. The business is unglamorous: a 3.9% operating margin in the second quarter, sales up 1.9% at constant rates, according to its interim report. A supermarket lives on huge volumes and thin margins. That is why the score is 6 out of 10 despite good management.

What interests me is the discipline. Free cash flow rose from 2.7 billion euros in 2022 to 4.4 billion in 2025, and the share count shrank from 995 to 887 million over the period, about 3% fewer each year. The company bought back 564 million euros of shares in the first half of 2026 and targets at least 2.3 billion of free cash flow for the year. The stock is valued at about 6.6 times its free cash flow, which looks very low, yet it still trades 21% above my buy price: my model does not bet on faster cash growth for a grocer.

Is Heineken the only one below my buy price?

Yes, and not for good reasons. Heineken scores 5 out of 10: its sales have not moved since 2022 (28.7 billion euros in 2025, versus 28.7 in 2022), its free cash flow margin is only 9%, and its debt equals 5.6 years of free cash flow. The share count falls slowly, 1.1% a year. A global brand, but a machine marking time.

The price, 76 euros against a buy price of 81, reflects exactly that. A brewer is not mispriced by mistake: the market pays flat growth a flat-growth price. I would not put it on my buy list without a reason to believe volumes will recover. A discount with no improving trend is a situation, not an opportunity.

Why do Philips, Akzo Nobel and Prosus rank lower?

Philips (4 out of 10) makes medical equipment, with a 2.8% free cash flow margin and debt of almost 10 years of free cash flow: too little cushion to absorb an industrial accident. My buy price is not usable, the model stumbling on too little cash. Akzo Nobel (4 out of 10), the paint maker, sees sales shrinking 2% a year and trades 66% above my buy price.

Prosus (6 out of 10) is a special case: a holding company whose value comes largely from a stake in Tencent, with sales up 17% a year and a share count falling almost 10% a year. The score is decent, but the price is 86% above my buy price, and the free cash flow of a holding like this is hard to read. I keep it on watch, not on my list.

What I take from this ranking

Three ideas. One: the two best Dutch scores come from chip equipment makers, and they are also the most expensive. Two: the only quality at a nearly reasonable price is Wolters Kluwer, because the market doubts its resilience to AI. Three: Heineken, alone below the buy price, proves that a low price does not replace a trajectory. To compare with its neighbours, I did the same exercise for Germany and Sweden. My analysis tool applies the same grid to any stock, which is exactly why I built it.

FAQ

What are the best Dutch stocks in 2026?

Of ten stocks screened on 19 October 2026, ASML and ASM International score 9 out of 10, followed by Wolters Kluwer (8) and Adyen (7). The score measures the quality of the business, not its price.

Which Dutch stock trades below the method's buy price?

Only one: Heineken, 6% below, but with a score of 5 out of 10 and flat sales since 2022. The others trade above it, from 9% for Wolters Kluwer to 86% for ASM International.

Why is ASM International more expensive than ASML?

It is valued at about 63 times its free cash flow against a little over 50 for ASML, though it is far smaller. The market has already priced the strong rise in sales expected in the second half.

Is Wolters Kluwer a good stock?

It is a quality business (8 out of 10) with 85% recurring revenue, priced low against its own history. The main risk is that artificial intelligence commoditises part of its information offering.

About the author

Written by Lubin Danilo, founder of Lubin Investment. A self-taught individual investor, I find fundamental analysis fascinating, and it has delivered excellent results. For three years now, my performance has beaten the S&P 500. But analyzing every stock took too much time: sites with incomplete data, calculation methods and criteria never aligned with mine. And spotting the best stocks was just as time-consuming, even with my own well-defined checklist. So I put my software development background to work to build this software, base my investment strategy on its results, and share it with people who share the same passion as me. It judges a company's quality and its price separately, using criteria drawn from the financial literature (Warren Buffett, Michael Mauboussin, Aswath Damodaran).