Sometimes the greatest things in the world are right there in front of you.
Of all the charts I look at and indicators that we include in our process, Consumer Staples relative to the S&P500 has to be one of the most valuable. And for that matter, one of the more simpler tools to use.
Consumer Staples are the things we’re theoretically going to buy even if there’s a recession or the economy is doing poorly. No matter how bad things get, we’re still going to drink beer, smoke cigarettes, brush our teeth, wash our dishes and so forth. Those stocks tend to outperform when the rest of the stock market is falling. Some of the top holdings of the S&P Consumer Staples Index include Colgate-Palmolive, Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
These stocks represent consumer staples and tend to pay higher dividends and are less volatile than the overall market. We call that “lower beta”, because it makes us sound smarter.
Anyway, you can see in this chart how helpful the relative strength in staples has been in identifying trends and turning points: [Read more…]