3 Consumer Staples Stocks That Provide Stability in a Volatile Investing Environment
Key Points
Costco keeps growing mostly through comps, rather than expansion.
Coca-Cola delivered $0.27 of profit for every dollar in sales last year. Drink that up.
Walmart and Costco have delivered just one year of top-line declines over more than three decades.
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Consumer staples are popular in 2026. It's not a surprise given the flight to safety. Investors are looking for industries that will thrive in all market environments, and consumer staples scratch that itch.
Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ: COST), Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), and Walmart (NASDAQ: WMT) are likely names you already know. Let's get into why all three are consumer staples stocks built for market uncertainties.
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1. Costco
The leading warehouse club operator tops the list of stable consumer staples. Try saying that three times fast. Costco has delivered net sales growth in all but one of the last 33 years, and even the outlier is still worth celebrating. The 1.5% decline in 2009 occurred during the Great Recession, when the entire U.S. corporate sector took a 13% top-line hit.
The all-weather appeal is clear. Despite the annual membership fees, churn remains low because shoppers know they will more than make up for it with rock-bottom pricing throughout the year. Costco is a safe stock, even with its lofty valuation.
You will pay 53 times trailing earnings to buy Costco today. It's naturally not growing anywhere close to that pace. This should be the chain's fourth consecutive year of single-digit revenue growth. The key to paying a market premium for Costco is its rabid customer loyalty.
With 924 big-box locations worldwide, it's not expansion that's fueling growth. Net sales rose 9% in its latest quarter, fueled mostly by a 7.9% jump in comps for the fiscal second quarter. This isn't a fluke. It's pretty much the default setting for Costco stock and its investors.
2. Coca-Cola
The high-margin provider of Coca-Cola syrup and other beverage essentials to regional bottlers and distributors is as close to a dream model as you can imagine. Soft drink prices have inched higher in recent years, but it's still a cheap indulgence.
With 64 years of dividend hikes, this Dividend King remains worthy of the throne. Fetching 25 times trailing earnings -- less than half of Costco's multiple -- doesn't make it cheap. It just makes it less expensive. However, when you have an iconic brand, a broad line of globally popular beverages, and a 27% net margin, you're going to be worth that premium.
3. Walmart
The country's second-largest company by revenue has quietly joined the elite club of 11 companies with market caps topping $1 trillion. Walmart's 39% ascent over the past year will do that. Like Costco but without the membership fees (outside of its own Sam's Club concept), Walmart is a haven for affordability.
Like Costco, Walmart has had only one year of negative top-line growth over the past several decades. Like Coca-Cola, it's also a Dividend King with 53 years of boosting its quarterly payouts. Like both stocks, it trades at a high multiple relative to its growth rate. Security is worth a market premium, especially in today's volatile climate.
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Rick Munarriz has positions in Costco Wholesale. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Costco Wholesale and Walmart. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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