5 Consumer Staples Stocks To Buy Amid Coronavirus-Led Rout

 | Mar 26, 2020 09:00PM ET

The coronavirus menace is not only wreaking havoc on communities but is affecting all business sectors, as social distancing remains the only way to contain it. The closing of businesses and stores across continents has done unprecedented damage to the global economy, sending jitters across all markets.

However, the demand for staples or essential goods seems to be soaring thanks to consumers’ panic-buying trends. Essentials like grocery, medicines, hand sanitizers, toilet paper, surface cleaners, disinfecting wipes, and packaged bottles have seen an unusual rise in demand over the past month.

This makes the role of consumer staples companies important. The companies are relentlessly working to increase the production of essential commodities to meet rising demand. Additionally, Pernod Richard (OTC:PDRDY) and Diageo (NYSE:DEO) have also offered their distillers to produce alcohol-based hand sanitizers.

The consumer staples sector includes companies providing necessary and daily-use products. This makes the industry a defensive play, while the global markets continue to spiral down. This space has always been a go-to place for investors, who want to play it safe during extreme market fluctuations.


Despite the rout in global markets, some consumer staples stocks, with a favorable Zacks Rank, have witnessed upward estimate revisions for current-year earnings per share (EPS) in the past 30 days. At this critical stage, we suggest you invest in consumer staples stocks that have solid growth prospects and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or #2 (Buy). You can see .

The chart below shows the price performance of our five picks in the year-to-date period.