Consistent winners: These stocks go up almost every year and are higher again in 2022

Published Wed, Mar 23 20223:05 PM EDTUpdated Wed, Mar 23 20227:06 PM EDT

With unprecedented levels of market volatility showing no signs of normalizing, it can be hard for investors to find a sure thing. History shows these stocks are the closest investors can get to one. The confluence of several themes that have rocked the market this year will continue to for a while, investment strategists say. The Federal Reserve plans to increase interest rates several more times this year, Covid cases are on the rise again and the war in Ukraine is still ongoing. However, there's a handful of stocks that have consistently risen over the past decade that investors can turn to for safety. CNBC Pro screened for S & P 500 stocks that have turned out positive total returns for each of the last 10 years, with the exception of the pandemic-plagued 2020, using data from FactSet. We then narrowed the search to stocks that are also up on a year-to-date basis and for whom analysts see future positive returns over the next 12 months. Just six stocks made the cut: TransDigm Group , is a designer, producer and supplier of engineered aircraft components for use on commercial and military aircraft in service, is the only stock on the list that has risen in each of the last 10 years, including 2020. Its 10-year total return is more than 1,000%, though the stock is still almost 11% from its consensus price target among analysts. Cincinnati Financial , a property casualty insurance and life insurance operator, has the biggest year-to-date gains on the list, at about 15%. It also has the second-biggest total returns over the past 10 years, at 418%. Atmos Energy is closest to hitting its consensus price target, sitting about 1.5% from it. The natural-gas-only distributor is up 9% this year. Its 10-year total return is 383%. Atmos is followed closely by NiSource , an energy holding company whose subsidiaries provide natural gas, electricity and other products and services. It's returns over the past 10 years total about 336.5%, and it's up 9.5% this year. CMS Energy Corp is up 3% for the year, after a 9.7% return last year, and is about 4% from its consensus price target. The company, which engages in domestic independent power production primarily out of Michigan, also only dipped 0.3% in 2020. Finally, the food and food service products distributor Sysco has shown a 10-year total return of 260% and is higher by more than 3% in 2022. It's about 10% from its consensus price target.

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchangein New York, U.S., on Tuesday, March 15, 2022.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

With unprecedented levels of market volatility showing no signs of normalizing, it can be hard for investors to find a sure thing. History shows these stocks are the closest investors can get to one.