In the United States, the term Nifty Fifty was an informal designation for a group of roughly fifty large-cap stocks on the New York Stock Exchange in the 1960s and 1970s that were widely regarded as solid buy and hold growth stocks, or “Blue-chip” stocks.
The companies include American Express, AMP, Coca-Cola, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, 3M, McDonald’s, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Walt Disney, Walmart, Xerox, and so on.
These fifty stocks are credited by historians with propelling the bull market of the early 1970s, while their subsequent crash and underperformance through the early 1980s are an example of what may occur following a period during which many investors ignore fundamental stock valuation metrics, to instead make decisions on popular sentiment.
Most of the Nifty Fifty have since recovered and are solid performers, although a few are now defunct or otherwise worthless.
In this video, Ray Dalio gives his opinion about the Nifty Fifty and stock market bubbles. He thinks that the Nifty Fifty is similar to the Dot-com bubble in 1999.
Source: Finance Jane.
