Goldman Sachs Adds European Stocks to Conviction List as Bitcoin (BTC) Holds Near $76,600

Adyen Draws the 77% Call

Goldman Sachs has placed three European companies on its “Conviction List – Directors’ Cut,” the bank’s curated roster of buy-rated European equities where it houses its highest-conviction ideas. The additions, published September 2, are Adyen, the Dutch payments processor; RWE, the German energy group; and Talanx, the German insurer. The Adyen call carries the heaviest weight in the refresh: Goldman’s research lays out 77% of implied upside, the largest target among the three, and it lands while the shares are under visible pressure. Adyen closed Monday’s session, September 1, at €1,006.80, a 3.88% decline on the day. That leaves the processor roughly 37% beneath its 52-week high of €1,600.80 and down close to 28% since the start of 2026 — a drawdown that has tested even patient holders, and one that contrasts with Adyen’s long-run status among Europe’s flagship fintech listings. Analyst Mohammed Moawalla anchors the bullish case on Adyen’s integrated platform model, arguing the single-stack architecture gives it a durable edge as rivals stitch together fragmented payment rails. He points to fresh client ramps as evidence the growth engine is intact, with the Toast partnership in the United States and Shopify’s expansion across Europe chief among them. Goldman also frames Adyen as a direct beneficiary of agentic commerce — the emerging model in which AI agents transact on behalf of users — tying the thesis to the processor’s collaborations with OpenAI, Google and Microsoft. Payments, in that framing, become the settlement layer for machine-driven checkout, a shift whose momentum is visible beyond equities in autonomous-agent projects such as Fetch.ai and in the agent-infrastructure push by labs like Anthropic. The 77% figure is the single most aggressive number in the bank’s September European research, and the designation matters for positioning: the Conviction List is the shelf Goldman shows institutional clients first when they ask where fresh European risk should go.

RWE and Talanx Targets

RWE presents a very different setup. The German utility closed at €58.58 on September 1 and has already climbed about 30% this year, yet Goldman still sets a €75 price target, implying another 28% of upside from that close. Analyst Alberto Gandolfi expects sustained grid spending and potential data-center supply agreements to re-rate the shares, and he flags two further levers: stronger returns on renewables projects in the United States and possible profits from the LNG business. In his reading, the energy-transition backlog is an earnings story rather than a subsidy story. Talanx completes the trio with the most modest objective. The insurer carries a €141 target — about 13% above prevailing levels — and the stock traded near €125 at the start of September, close to its 2026 high after a 12% year-to-date advance. Analyst Andrew Baker’s case rests on the Retail International arm, the division selling policies outside Germany, which he describes as an “underappreciated growth engine”; he projects premiums there will rise 8% to 10% annually through 2030. Talanx sitting near its yearly high means the entry point is far less contrarian than Adyen’s, and the thinner 13% upside reflects that. The refresh cuts in both directions. Goldman dropped Hannover Re from the list alongside Enel, Wise and Zalando — a reinsurer, a utility, a payments firm and an e-commerce retailer exiting in a single sweep, with Wise’s departure particularly pointed given the cross-border payments overlap with the newest addition. The composition is the signal: two of the bank’s three September additions lean directly on the AI build-out, making this a sharper, more thematic screen than the permanent-holder patience of a Berkshire Hathaway-style book. These are catalyst-driven calls with explicit price targets attached. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on MEXC.

Bitcoin (BTC) Rotation Read-Through

Our read of the September refresh: Goldman is telling institutional clients where conviction currently sits — in AI-levered payments and energy infrastructure rather than in defensive quality. The read-through for digital assets is indirect but real. Bitcoin (BTC) changes hands near $76,600 as of publication, and a bank steering client capital toward 77%-upside equity calls is competing for the same risk budget that funds crypto allocation. Adyen holders who chose to HODL through a 28% year-to-date drawdown now own a stock Goldman models 77% higher — conviction, in traditional markets as on-chain, remains a bet that patience gets paid.