GOLDMAN SACHS: These 14 stocks will crush the market as wages rise

Reuters / Brendan McDermid

• Companies that have the lowest labor costs are poised to outperform, according to Goldman Sachs.
• The firm has identified 14 companies that are set to beat the market as wages increase.

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With extra cash on hand thanks to the GOP tax bill, companies are starting to sweeten the pot for their workers.

Home Depot became the latest company to do so on Thursday, announcing that it would give hourly associates in the US a one-time cash bonus of up to $1,000. They joined JPMorgan, American Airlines, AT&T, Boeing, Comcast, and Visa, who have all either hiked pay or issued bonuses in the past few weeks.

This is great news for employees, but it’s a much more complicated situation for companies — particularly those with the highest labor costs. For firms that already pay high wages relative to the rest of the market, the mounting pressure to increase employee pay may end up hurting their bottom lines in the long run.

So what’s an investor to do? Look for companies with low labor costs, of course. And lucky for you, Goldman Sachs maintains an index of such firms.

Without further ado, here are 14 stocks Goldman says will outperform as labor costs rise. Note that this is a collection of the companies from within Goldman’s 49-stock “low labor cost” basket, and for whom implied labor costs are either 0% or 1% of revenue.