Of the 3,000-plus companies we monitor in The Motley Fool's Rule Breakers Primary database, exactly one tops the list with an overall Superscore of 99. It isn't a household name – it's ASML (ASML +4.02%), the quiet Dutch firm that builds the machines that make the world's most advanced computer chips.
It's also a textbook “Snap Cola” company – the concept David Gardner unpacks in Rule Breaker Investing, and one ASML is earning right now. So what is a Snap Cola, and how do you spot the next one? Let's get into it.
What's a Snap Cola?
It's David's name for the single most important trait he looks for in a stock – Rule Breaker Trait #1: a top dog and first-mover in an important, emerging industry. The mnemonic is deliberately silly, because silly sticks. And it bundles two tests every true Rule Breaker must pass.
Snap – the importance test. David first laid this out back in 1999. Picture a company you're researching, then snap your fingers and make it vanish overnight. Poof. Would anyone notice? Would anyone care? The more people who'd miss it, the louder the snap. As David puts it, "buy companies that if they disappeared overnight, tons of people would notice and many would care." Amazon (AMZN -1.98%) – whose purpose from day one was "to be Earth's most customer-centric company" – registers loudly.
Cola – the singularity test. Are they the only ones doing what they're doing? When you scan the landscape, can you find a real rival – or is everyone else playing Pepsi to this company's Coke? The best Rule Breakers don't have a close second. They are the category.
The Cola Test is the one that trips people up, and David illustrates it with Apple (AAPL -0.65%). Did it always pass? By his reckoning, no: for most of its first twenty years, Apple played Pepsi to Microsoft's (MSFT -0.70%) Coke. Then came the iPod, and in 2007 the iPhone, and by his account Apple was suddenly the only one doing what it was doing. That's the moment he finally picked it, in 2008.
If "Snap Cola" is too silly for you, here's the same idea in David's words:
I try to find excellence, buy excellence, and add to excellence over time. I sell mediocrity.
Why ASML passes both
In EUV lithography – extreme ultraviolet, the process required to etch the world's most advanced chips – ASML didn't overtake anyone. It created the category.
When David recommended it in July 2020, he called it "the monopoly you've never heard of." The first-mover case was right there in the timeline: ASML started on EUV around 2000 and didn't reach high-volume production until 2018–19 – "a nearly two-decade-long path that Nikon and Canon have departed from." Nobody beat ASML to EUV. Everybody else quit.
There's your 1–2 punch. Cola: as David wrote in 2020, "ASML is the only company in the world that makes these systems" – not dominant-but-challenged, sole. Snap: EUV is the linchpin of the advanced-chip economy – snap ASML out of existence and progress on the world's most advanced chips would stall overnight. Top dog, first-mover, category creator, all at once. Which is exactly why it earns that Superscore of 99, number one on our Rule Breakers Primary database.
And here's the payoff about holding. Up 62.75% year to date at the time of writing, ASML has been on a tear – but the deeper lesson is staying power. It has been recommended three times on the Rule Breakers side of the Stock Advisor scorecard, in 2020, 2022, and 2025, and today every pick is beating the market by at least 100% (the original by roughly 200%). We didn't buy once and declare victory; we came back twice, because a genuine Snap Cola keeps earning its place. Find excellence, buy excellence, add to excellence.
