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Defensive stock trading is an all-weather type of investment. It can keep your pockets stuffed through market turbulence, even when the wider market is struggling. People can’t cut back on consumer staples (think beverage and tobacco products, household goods, personal products and food and drug retailers).
Here are 5 consumer defensive stocks that deserve your attention.
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Overview: Consumer Defensive Stocks
The consumer sector produces products people need almost on a daily basis. Consumer defensive stocks are great investments in virtually any economic environment, including economic slowdowns.
Unlike cyclical stocks, which are highly dependent on the economic cycle, defensive stocks generate stable profits through all stages of the economic cycle. The simple idea behind investing in defensive stocks is to shield against significant decreases in share prices, which occur during either bear markets or market corrections.
Although consumer defensive sectors offer price stability through the economic cycle, the tradeoff is that they experience less growth during market upswings compared to higher-risk, cyclical sectors. The industry groups considered to be defensive include:
- Consumer staples
- Healthcare
- Commodities
- Utilities
Best Online Brokers for Consumer Defensive Stock
Online brokers don’t just let you execute and track stock trades. They provide extensive research material, tools to backtest strategies and charting capabilities for better market analysis. Here’s a list of the best brokers in the industry.
Webull, founded in 2017, is a mobile app-based brokerage that features commission-free stock and exchange-traded fund (ETF) trading. It’s regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).
Webull offers active traders technical indicators, economic calendars, ratings from research agencies, margin trading and short-selling. Webull’s trading platform is designed for intermediate and experienced traders, although beginning traders can also benefit.
Webull is widely considered one of the best Robinhood alternatives.
- Active traders
- Intermediate traders
- Advanced traders
- No account maintenance fees or software platform fees
- No charges to open and maintain an account
- Intuitive trading platform with technical and fundamental analysis tools
- Does not support trading in mutual funds, bonds or OTC stocks
Moomoo is a commission-free mobile trading app available on Apple, Google and Windows devices. A subsidiary of Futu Holdings Ltd., it’s backed by venture capital affiliates of Matrix, Sequoia, and Tencent (NASDAQ: FUTU). Securities offered by Futu Inc., regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).
Moomoo is another great alternative for Robinhood. This is an outstanding trading platform if you want to dive deep into smart trading. It offers impressive trading tools and opportunities for both new and advanced traders, including advanced charting, pre and post-market trading, international trading, research and analysis tools, and most popular of all, free Level 2 quotes.
Get started right away by downloading Moomoo to your phone, tablet or another mobile device.
- Cost-conscious traders
- Active and Advanced traders
- Over 8,000 different stocks that can be sold short
- Access trading and quotes in pre-market (4 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. ET) and post-market hours (4 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET)
- No minimum deposit to open an account.
- No chat support
E*TRADE is an online discount trading house that offers brokerage and banking services to individuals and businesses. One of the first brokers to embrace online trading, E*TRADE not only survived both the dot-com bubble and Recession — it thrived. You can choose from two different platforms (one basic, one advanced). E*TRADE is a suitable broker for traders of most skill levels, whether you want to buy mutual funds and hold them for decades or dabble in options swing trading. E*TRADE offers a library of research and education materials to help you out.
- Active traders
- Derivatives traders
- Retirement savers
- Sophisticated trading platforms
- Wide range of tradable assets
- Exceptional customer service
- Limited currency trading
- Higher margin rates than competitors
- No paper trading on its standard platform
This latest groundbreaking technology is IBKR GlobalAnalyst, a new trading tool that helps investors compare the rate of PEG or price-earnings growth valuations and provide more immediate and comprehensive financial metrics of stocks, globally.
Recognizing that stock selection can be challenging for investors to compare the valuations of domestic and international stocks, Interactive Brokers created GlobalAnalyst to offer investors a simple, yet powerful tool to easily evaluate investment opportunities around the world.
Using GlobalAnalyst, investors can search for stocks by region, country, industry, market capitalization and currency to uncover undervalued stocks worldwide. The resulting table displays the current market and financial metrics, including the PEG Ratio. The PEG Ratio is the PE ratio divided by the three-year compound earnings growth rate, and smaller PEG Ratios typically indicate undervalued companies.
- Price earnings growth valuations
- Easily evaluate investment opportunities
CenterPoint Securities is ideal for active traders who demand access to advanced tools and services. While investors and casual traders are likely to be content with the basic offerings of traditional online brokerages, active traders will benefit from CenterPoint’s suite of advanced trading tools. If you value execution quality, access to short inventory, advanced trading platforms, and accessible customer service, CenterPoint is an excellent choice.
- Intermediate to Advanced traders
- High-volume traders
- Momentum traders
- Short sellers
- Unrivaled access to short inventory
- Flexible order routing for improved executions
- Discounts for active traders
- Advanced platform with fast executions
- Reliable customer service
- Not designed for beginner or low-volume traders
Features to Look for in Consumer Defensive Stocks
- Market share is a huge determinant of stock profitability. It’s the proportion of an industry’s total output, capacity or sales that a company is responsible for over a given period. Capturing a dominant share of the market is valuable for 2 main reasons — companies you invest in that capture the lion’s share of the market tend to offer the highest profits and keep up with competitive threats. A leading brand will easily secure a lot of shelf space with retailers. The aim is to increase its sales margin faster than the larger industry, therefore increasing market share over time.
- Same-store sales growth helps put revenue data in perspective. Also referred to as comparable store sales, it’s the measure of revenue and sales growth from existing store locations. This metric helps you assess the operating momentum of a business, whether it attracts huge customer traffic and stands out from the competition. Weak comparable store sales could be a sign of scaling business challenges.
- Profit margins may help you evaluate the earnings power of consumer staple companies. Top consumer staples companies post market-leading profit margins attributable to large sales bases, valuable brands and effective operating structures. Higher margins on this metric often indicate stronger earnings and a greater stock pricing power.
Defend Your Portfolio Against a Stock Market Shock
Having a few consumer defensive stocks can help you hedge against stock market shocks. Although these stocks aren’t the best performers in a bull market, they usually go up when the market slips. A portfolio containing defensives is more likely to offer a dividend. A regular income is always nice to have, especially during tough economic times.