3 Stocks Worth Holding Through Any Market Condition

Not that the market's at immediate, inevitable risk of a pullback, but it never hurts to be prepared for the possibility. More to the point for investors, it's not a bad idea to remain positioned for the possibility of a sweeping market setback, since you never know when they're going to materialize. Waiting until they're underway to respond probably means you've waited too late to act.

With that as the backdrop, here's a rundown of three stocks worth holding regardless of market conditions. They're good names to hold in bullish environments, but their businesses remain mostly unimpacted by economic headwinds.

Verizon

To say Americans like their smartphones would be a considerable understatement. They love them, perhaps to the point of an unhealthy addiction. Data from Pew Research indicates that 98% of U.S. adults own a mobile phone, with 85% specifically owning a smartphone that they check nearly 200 times per day, according to Reviews.org, and stare at for over five hours every day.

Connect the dots. Whether it's unhealthy use or not, domestic consumers clearly aren't going to let go of their constant connection to the outside world now. They're going to do whatever it takes to feed their habit regardless of the economy's or market's condition.

Enter Verizon (NYSE: VZ). The wireless provider currently serves 146.8 million mobile phone lines, and it expects to add on the order of another 750,000 postpaid customers for the entirety of calendar 2026. It simply needs to continue doing what it's proven it can do well.

This resiliency isn't quite what makes this stock such a compelling all-weather holding, however. It's the fact that Verizon's generous cash dividend payments are almost certain to continue being paid even if a weak economy tanks the market. That's when even modest, reliable investment wins can be a pretty big deal.

Newcomers will be stepping in at a forward-looking dividend yield of 6.7%, which is nice cash flow when the market's rising, too.

Walmart

Unlike most of its peers, brick-and-mortar retailer Walmart (NASDAQ: WMT) is mostly unfazed even when consumers' discretionary spending dries up. That's because over half of its revenue comes from sales of groceries, of course, which are always in demand. And, while the rest of its selection is technically considered discretionary goods, merchandise like school supplies, basic clothing, automotive items, and others could just as easily be categorized as consumer staples that are purchased and replaced over and over again.

The downside here is -- like Verizon -- there's just not a great deal of growth to be won in this well-saturated business; last quarter's same-store sales growth of 4.1% within the United States is pretty typical.

Image source: Getty Images.

Still, the crux of the bullish argument here is the recurring revenue Walmart generates in any and all environments. There's some anecdotal evidence, in fact, that suggests Walmart's business gets a bit of a bump when times are tough and money is tighter for everyone.

Back in 2022 and 2023, when domestic inflation was soaring, Walmart's management frequently touted the fact that most of the market share gains it was making were coming from affluent households earning more than $100,000 per year, who were also trying to stretch their spending dollars. It's likely to happen again if market weakness dials back the so-called wealth effect.

Meanwhile, Walmart's sheer size provides it with incredible operating leverage with its vendors, as well as more marketing firepower to connect with consumers. It can simply outspend rivals like Target.

Alphabet

Finally, add Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) to your list of stocks worth holding on to no matter what the market's doing.

This seems counterintuitive on the surface. Big technology growth stocks seem particularly vulnerable to marketwide weakness, after all, and Alphabet is most definitely a big tech company. The nature of its businesses, however, leaves it much better equipped to withstand headwinds than it might seem it should be at first blush.

Think about it. In the same sense that consumers continue to eat and also use their smartphones regardless of the backdrop, they also still need ways of navigating the World Wide Web. To this end, Alphabet's Google remains the planet's most-used search engine, with a market share of 91%, according to numbers from Statcounter, which also reports that Google's mobile operating system Android is installed on 69% of the world's mobile devices. If that's where people are going to digitally connect with the rest of the world, advertisers will follow.

A similar dynamic applies to its fast-growing cloud computing business. Its institutional customers may accelerate or decelerate their growing demand for such solutions. They're unlikely to need less of this infrastructure at any point in the foreseeable future, though.

The company's historical numbers bear out this argument, too. With the exception of a very slight 1.7% year-over-year dip in the second quarter of 2020 -- when the COVID-19 pandemic was rattling the entire world -- not once since 2012 has Alphabet reported a year-over-year decline in quarterly revenue.

Some of this persistent growth could actually reflect consumers' increased usage of the internet and mobile apps as cost-effective entertainment if and when consumerism-crimping weakness sets in. We may already be seeing this effect, in fact. Although its cloud computing arm led Alphabet's Q1 growth, Google's advertising business experienced healthy (and accelerating) revenue growth of 15.5% during the same quarter, even though a handful of economic headwinds were already blowing then.

James Brumley has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Target, and Walmart. The Motley Fool recommends Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.