We're adding a consumer stock as we shift our portfolio to account for a more aggressive Fed

Published Thu, Apr 7 20228:52 AM EDTUpdated Thu, Apr 7 202212:55 PM EDT

We're initiating a position in Procter & Gamble (PG), buying 300 shares at roughly $156.62 each, representing 1.4% of the portfolio. It has been a volatile couple of days in the market as investors have recalibrated their expectations of how aggressively the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this year to stamp out inflation. It's a real cause for concern because a tightening cycle that prioritizes crushing inflation above all else will hurt the economic expansion and the stock market alike. However, we do not want to move completely to the sidelines out of fear of a Fed-mandated slow down because there is always a bull market somewhere, and it is our job to go find it and become more selective with what we own. We shifted the portfolio That's why we recently repositioned the portfolio out of some economically sensitive names like United Parcel Service and Nucor and lightened up on tech, which won't fare well as the Fed aggressively hikes rates. With plenty of cash on hand and room in the portfolio to spare, we're taking a page out of our old hedge fund playbook and adding a consumer packaged goods company that will do just fine even if the central bank hits the brakes on the economy too hard. Procter & Gamble owns a diverse portfolio of household products spread across five product categories: Fabric & Home Care, Baby, Feminine & Family Care, Beauty, Health Care and Grooming. The company's brands are some of the best names in their categories, from Tide, Downy, and Gain laundry detergents, to Bounty paper towels and Charmin toilet paper, to Crest and Oral-B toothpastes, to Head & Shoulders and Herbal Essences shampoos, to Gillette razor blades. Recession-resistant stock We believe P & G is a safety stock and recession-resistant because demand for its products do not fluctuate based on the economy. People don't stop buying toothpaste, toilet paper, paper towels, and laundry detergent in a slowdown. The company could be a huge winner here as they have raised prices in anticipation of higher costs but we have learned this week that freight costs are plummeting, down 30% for the year according to some sources, and we may be seeing a peak in a variety of raw costs. When the Fed tightens it hurts the producers of raw goods not so much the consumers. P & G, which has dropped about 3% in 2022, should be ready for its next move higher P & G is not completely immune to inflation and margins have come under pressure recently, but unlike many of its peers it has pricing power to pass on these higher input costs. The company has earned this ability over time by investing heavily in innovation — to make its products superior — and in advertising — to make sure everybody knows its products are superior. In the company's most recent quarter, it generated fantastic 6% organic sales growth, with half coming from higher volume and half coming from higher prices. Those price increases stuck across all five of their main business segments. In a recession, one of the big fears one might have with a consumer packaged goods company is the risk that consumers trade down to lower quality brands due to pricing. We think management is well prepared for this scenario and on track to launch many new products this year focused on midtier offerings and more affordable pack sizes. Shareholder returns By now, you know how we feel about investing in companies in this turbulent market: We want companies that "make stuff or do things", earn a profit for their efforts and return part of those profits to shareholders through dividends and buybacks. Procter & Gamble belongs to a special group of stocks called Dividend Aristocrats, meaning they're one of the S & P 500 companies that have increased its dividend every year for the last 25 years. In P & G's case, the company has increased its dividend for 65 consecutive years. Currently, shares pay a quarterly dividend of $0.8698 (an annual dividend of approximately $3.48), good for a roughly 2.24% yield. Historically, P & G announces an increase to its quarterly dividend this month, so we expect some news soon. The company is set to report fiscal third-quarter 2022 earnings on April 20. Additionally, the company has a massive share repurchase plan in place, buying back $4.8 billion of stock last quarter alone. Overall, P & G expects to repurchase $9 billion to $10 billion of its common shares in fiscal 2022. Price-to-earnings valuation As for the current price, P & G currently trades about $9 off an all-time high set this past January — and that's a good thing, because we never want to chase. On valuation, shares are trading at 25.6x next 12-month earnings. This multiple is a couple of turns higher than the five-year average of 22.2x. Safety stocks are rarely cheap — and it's for a good reason, because they are what work in a slowdown. Still, it represents a slight discount to the five-year max of multiple of 26.9x. Even in a market where multiple expansion is hard to come by, it would not surprise us to see P & G trade at an even higher multiple as investors rotate out of economically sensitive names and back into safety stocks that pay dividends and buy back stock. We are initiating P & G with a 1 rating — meaning, we would be buyers at the current price — and an initial price target of $175, representing 26.5x estimated calendar year 2023 earnings. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long PG. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

Tide, a laundry detergent owned by the Procter & Gamble company, is seen on a store shelf on October 20, 2020 in Miami, Florida.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

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