Defensive Stocks Show No Panic Rotation (PEP, KO, BUD, TAP, KFT, CAG, CPB, HRL, MCD, MO, VGR, RAI, PG, CL, MRK, JNJ, NVO)

With the markets down so much today on the financial stock fallout after the Citi downgrade/concern and with oil stocks listing lower after the Exxon miss, we wanted to show a brief comparison of DEFENSIVE STOCKS versus the market today.  If the market does start to get shaky, many of these defensive stock names are where traders will look to hide their equity money.  That may be even more-so the case now that the fiscal year-end window dressing trade for mutual funds has played out.

If you look below the top defensive stocks, which are all trading lower today, are by and large not down as much as the broad market but they aren’t showing any massive defensive interest either.  Of the 30 DJIA components, only 3 are positive today and they are all technology related. 

DJIA            13,727.52 (-202.49/-1.45%)
S&P500      1,527.59  (-21.79/-1.41%)
NASDAQ    2,829.27  (-29.85/-1.04%)

PEP    $73.19    (-0.53/-0.72%)   
KO      $61.63    (-0.13/-0.21%)   
BUD   $50.95    (-0.33/-0.64%)   
TAP    $55.83    (-1.40/-2.45%)   
KFT    $32.98    (-0.43/-1.29%)   
CAG    $23.50    (-0.23/-0.97%)   
CPB    $36.51    (-0.47/-1.27%)   
HRL    $36.21    (-0.27/-0.74%)   
MCD   $59.29    (-0.46/-0.77%)   
MO      $72.63    (-0.30/-0.41%)   
VGR    $21.62    (-0.26/-1.19%)
RAI      $63.49    (-0.94/-1.46%)   
PG       $69.44    (-0.08/-0.12%)   
CL       $75.03    (-1.24/-1.63%)   
MRK    $57.93    (-0.33/-0.57%)   
JNJ      $64.91    (-0.26/-0.40%)   
NVO    $122.55   (-2.14/-1.72%)

So today may be a bad day and decliners may be greatly higher than advancers, but there is not any major fear going on even if the VIX is back over 21.0 right now. Of course that can change, but that isn’t the case so far.

Jon C. Ogg
November 1, 2007