A Stock Picker with a Basket of Consumer Staples
By: 
With global stock markets whipsawed by the ups and downs of the the Euro debt crisis and the Chinese economy, few sectors have been spared.
Investors who saw almost everything rise in the first quarter must now be selective, and one way to approach that is to be company specific. And that means stock picking.
Don Yacktman, president and co-CIO of Yacktman Asset Management, should know.
His funds, Yacktman Focused Fund and the Yacktman Fund were the leading performers among large-cap value funds over the past decade, outperforming the S&P 500.
Yacktman of late has made headlines by focusing on consumer stocks such as Proctor & Gamble Clorox and Pepsico .
"I can't predict what will happen in the software business, but I can much more predict you're going to use Tide, or someone in your family will use Pampers," Yacktman, said on CNBC's Fast Money Half-Time Reportat the Morningstar Investment Conference in Chicago.
That's not to say Yacktman avoids technology stocks. But he has passed on everyone's favorite, Apple ; instead he owns Ciscoand Microsoft .
All of the above stocks are among his top ten holdings. Yacktman funds control $17 billion in assets.