Most people simply hate stocks.
According to a June 2012 survey conducted by the University of
Chicago and Northwestern University, 84% of respondents say the
stockmarket is untrustworthy and that it's foolish to put your
money into stocks.
I can see their point. Bernard Madoff may be the poster child
forWall Street fraud -- but he's got plenty of company.
Even if Wall Street could clean up its act, it's easy to understand
why investors take a dim view toward stocks: The S&P 500 is
actually 15% lower than where it stood five years ago. In fact,
it's lower than where it stood back in 2000. Cash under the
mattress would have been a better investment.
But I think there's a better way to look at things. After all, over
longer time frames, stocks perform quite well. Even though the last
10 years could be considered a "lost decade" for stocks, the
S&P 500 has moved from below 200 in 1985 to above 1,400 today
-- a gain of more than 600% over 25 years.
That's cold comfort for investors right now. At the moment,
oureconomy looks weak, and the rest of the world looks even worse.
That's why investors have their heads tucked between their legs,
bracing for the impact of another crash.
But don't count on such a dire outcome coming to pass. If history
is any guide, stocks will likely be higher five or 10 years from
now, and your retirement portfolio can finally start to make major
progress.
You could invest in the stock market via anindex fund , but I think
you can do even better by investing in "safe stocks."
That's because while I think stocks in general will be much higher
a decade from now, the market could suffer some scary plunges along
the way. To protect yourself from the gut-wrenching volatility,
it's wisest to focus on "safe stocks."
That term should be used a bit loosely, as no stock is immune from
falling in value. But if you know where to look, you can find an
entire class of stocks that have proven their mettle, through good
economies and bad. These stocks are likely to deliver quiet and
steady gains rather than neck-snapping spikes and plunges.
The one true measure
My safe stocks share one trait: They all have a history of
producing positivefree cash flow -- in any economic climate.
I went back over 10 years' worth of data and -- out of the 900
stocks in the S&P 500Index and the S&P Mid-Cap 400 Index --
I found fewer than 100 stocks that never generated negative free
cash flow during that time. Apologies to
Microsoft (Nasdaq:
MSFT
)
,
Visa (NYSE:
V
)
and
Applied Materials (Nasdaq:
AMAT
)
, great companies that had just one year of negative free cash flow
in the past 10 years and therefore didn't make the cut.
So why is free cash flow the best measure of safety?
Let me use the "Good Humor truck" example to illustrate why free
cash flow is the real measure of a company's quality.
Let's say you spend $5,000 on a used Good Humor truck and take to
the streets to sell ice cream. That summer, you buy $1,000 worth of
ice cream and re-sell it for $2,000. Congratulations -- you just
made $1,000 in profits, but you are still $4,000 poorer
afteraccounting for the cost of that truck.
The point is, great, safe companies are profitable AND make enough
extra to cover their year-to-year investments that set the stage
for future growth (known as capital expenditures, orCapEx ).
Debt -- manageable vs. problematic
Of course, even the most solid-seeming companies can run into
trouble if they have weak balance sheets. In the economic crisis of
2008, a number of companies saw their stock prices plunge as
investors began to realize that looming debt payments could force
these companies into bankruptcy.
Some debt is good: Debt can be a useful tool to help lower tax
bills or keep the number ofoutstanding shares from rising. But too
much debt can spell trouble.
Looking at my list of 100 free-cash-flow kings, I decided to toss
out any companies with debt equal to 50% or more of their cash
levels. That means that if necessary, these companies could pay off
their debt tomorrow and still have plenty of cash on thebalance
sheet .
After that constraint, my list dropped to just 38 companies.
Now, investors know that smaller companies -- no matter how strong
they are -- will always be sold off inbear markets. So I narrowed
the list down even further to companies with amarket capitalization
of at least $8 billion. "Big and safe" is the always the place to
be when the going gets tough.
Finally, I wanted my final list to be those stocks that represent
the best values right now. So, as an added twist, I ranked the
remaining companies by their three-year average free-cash-flowyield
. The higher the yield, the more free cash flow the company
generates -- and that's a good thing.
Note that these companies were able to generate impressivecash flow
during the recent weak economy. That means they are likely to look
even more impressive as the economy gets healthier.
Action to Take -->
Every one of these companies has fattened its balance sheet with
cash every year for the past 10 years, and it's quite likely they
will continue to do so. With a track record like that, investors
will be unlikely to dump them when the market crashes and other
stocks are being unloaded. Even better, these stocks should rise
alongside the nextbull market once we work our way through these
uncertain times.
This article originally appeared on InvestingAnswers.com:
The 10 Safest Stocks
In America
-- David Sterman
David Sterman does not personally hold positions in any
securities mentioned in this article. StreetAuthority LLC owns
shares of V, MSFT in one or more if its "real money"
portfolios.