Soft landing stocks
Strategists at Goldman Sachs have a new note out, saying that the market is pricing in a soft landing even though the trend of earnings revisions points to a hard landing. They're not that optimistic -- even in the soft-landing scenario, the team led by David Kostin say the S&P 500 will end the year right around current levels, at 4,000. But they identify 46 stocks that could benefit -- profitable, cyclical companies that are trading at price-to-earnings valuations below their 10-year median, among other factors.
One name jumps out:
Tesla (TSLA), which trades at 22 times forward earnings versus the 10-year median of 117 times. But the other
45 names are less flashy, ranging from Capital One (COF) and Carlyle Group (CG), to a host of industrials including 3M (MMM), Parker-Hannifan (PH) and Otis Worldwide (OTIS). As a whole, these typically $10 billion companies are trading at 12 times earnings, versus 17 times usually.
In the hard landing scenario, S&P 500 profit margins would shrink by 125 basis points, to 10.9% -- about in line with the median peak-to-trough decline during the eight recessions since 1970, which has been 132 basis points. Consensus expectations are for a 26 basis-point margin decline.
The Goldman team also have a
36 stock screen for a hard landing -- profitable companies in defensive industries with a positive dividend yield. They're typically food, beverage and tobacco companies as well as software and services companies -- including
Costco Wholesale (COST), Kroger (KR), Altria (MO), Tyson Foods (TSN), Microsoft (MSFT), MasterCard (MA) and Visa (V). As a whole, these $37 billion companies are trading at 22 times earnings vs. a historical 24 times.
www.goldmansachs.com