VEU - 3 Defensive Plays to Make as the Market's 'Fear Factor' Ramps Up

2024-04-26 06:30:00 ET

InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips

It’s getting jittery out there. After a year of strong and steady stock market gains, it seems like fear and risk are coming back. For example, CNN’s widely followed “ Fear and Greed Index ” has flipped from “Extreme Greed” at the beginning of March over to “Fear” right now.

There are various reasons for this. The situation in the Middle East has grown increasingly chaotic. At home, inflation readings continue to come in significantly higher than economists had hoped for. This sticky inflation could lead the Federal Reserve to fail to deliver on anticipated rate cuts.

Combining these factors, investors are starting to reassess their risk tolerance and portfolio positioning heading into the summer months.

It’s never wise to panic and make rash sell decisions. However, some prudent portfolio adjustments could lead to sounder sleep and steadier returns. Going forward, here are three defensive plays to make as fear rises.

Defensive Play as Fear Rises: Bonds

Since the 2008 financial crisis, fixed income has generally offered paltry yields. That’s particularly true on government securities.

Many investors have written off fixed income due to its seemingly low reward. That was a totally understandable position in the zero-interest rate environment.

Now, however, these products offer far more attractive yields. That’s true on both short-term fixed income, such as certificates of deposit and treasury bills, and also longer-duration treasury bonds. The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NYSEARCA: TLT ) offers a nearly 4% yield today, for example.

This is close to the highest that’s been on offer in 15 years. It means that you can get paid to wait, while taking less market risk.

Historically, the 60/40 portfolio — which consists of 60% equities and 40% fixed income — has been a popular method to overcome market volatility. Now that interest rates have come up to more reasonable levels, this could be a great time to add more bond exposure.

Defensive Play as Fear Rises: International Stocks

Another defensive play for improving a portfolio’s risk profile is to diversify internationally. There’s a well-known tendency in investing where people are prone to home bias . This is where people invest the vast majority their funds into domestic stocks, foregoing the benefits of international investing.

The U.S. is hardly the only country prone to home bias. This phenomenon is well-documented in Canada , the United Kingdom and Australia among other markets.

The U.S. market has dramatically outperformed global equities since 2008, and especially so with the recent tech boom. This divergence has arguably caused U.S. equities to become rather expensive compared to most other global markets. By one metric, the U.S. is the world’s second most expensive major market out there, only trailing India.

In the past, it was harder to deal with home bias given the complications of trading individual stocks on foreign exchanges. However, thanks to low-fee exchange-traded funds (ETFs), investors can now easily add some exposure to Europe, Japan and even emerging markets with one click. The Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US Index Fund ETF Shares (NYSEARCA: VEU ), for example, offers exposure to all the world’s non-U.S. equities in a single ETF.

Defensive Play as Fear Rises: Consumer Staples

Consumer Staples Select ETF (NYSEARCA: XLP ) are the category of companies that sell low-priced everyday goods. These are the things people buy frequently such as food and beverages, cleaning supplies, toiletries, and so on.

Historically, consumer staples stocks carry a couple of benefits. For one, they are low beta stocks. This means that they have the tendency to make much smaller moves than the S&P 500 overall. If a stock has a beta of 0.5, for example, it should be expected to only make 50% of the move of the overall index. In practical terms, this means that if the market is heading for a significant downturn, lower beta stocks should serve as defensive plays that retain most of their value.

For another thing, consumer staples stocks tend to be recession-proof. People keep eating, drinking, brushing their teeth, and cleaning their houses regardless of what’s going on with economy.

Staples stocks are selling at historically depressed valuations. This sector has been out of favor due to higher interest rates and people fretting about lowered profit margins as a result of pandemic related disruptions.

As the focus shifts from that past crisis toward the future, consumer staples companies should see more promising operating conditions. This will lead to more favorable valuations and give investors a safe harbor during the coming market downturn.

On the date of publication, Ian Bezek did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines .

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