Protecting Your Wealth as Recession Fears Rise

Today’s weaker-than-expected jobs report is putting pressure on stocks and has more investors uttering the “R word.” 

To help investors protect their portfolios in this uncertain market environment, CNBC asked the experts for advice.

Betting on the Consumer

“As far as consumer stocks … we found a lot of opportunities there, and what we think are very stable businesses with little operating risk, as low as five times operating income, which for a value investment firm … that spells opportunity.”

- Mark Travis, Intrepid Capital Funds Chief Investment Officer

Travis recommends: DSW , Family Dollar and Wal-Mart .

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Scary economy? Invest with CNBC's experts:

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Steel & Natural Gas Plays

“I think steel has more legs than a centipede these days, so I still like Steel [U.S. Steel] … [for] a nat gas play, let’s go with PTEN [Patterson UTI] … I think with nat gas being high for probably the next year or so, they’re going to be able to increase their drilling budget, which means to them they have the most leverage in that space to bring you back those land rigs, so I think that’s a nice play.”

- Steve Grasso, Stuart Frankel

Fertilizer Stocks: Benefiting From the Ag Boom

“We’ve actually been waiting for the fertilizer stocks to pull back a little bit, and that’s why we waited to upgrade the stocks until now, and they have pulled back a bit … With the names that are involved with the Potash fertilizer and also with the phosphates, I think you can buy those stocks now on the pullback.”

- Michael Judd, Greenwich Consultants Chemical Analysts

Judd recommends: Mosaic , Potash and Compass Minerals .

(Contd.)

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Banking on Banks: A Quantitative Strategy

“We’re buying the banks, using a strategy that looks for big, market-leading companies that have either high shareholder yield — which is buyback plus dividend yield — or just straight out high dividend yield. One of the things we’ve found is … if you look at the dividends on some of these stocks, they’re out of this world.”

- Jim O’Shaughnessy, O’Shaughnessy Asset Management

O’Shaughnessy recommends: Citigroup .

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