One sector that can often do better than others in a recession or bear market is “Consumer Staples.” This category includes companies that make food products, personal care items like toothpaste or disposable diapers, candy, cleaning products and just about everything you might find at Target or Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is a “consumer staples” company, and it is the go-to store for many on limited budgets during good times and bad. Some things most cannot do without are the things we use every day.

Just about every fund provider offers a consumer staples ETF. Three that are worth considering are FSTA (Fidelity® MSCI Consumer Staples Index ETF), VDC (Vanguard Consumer Staples Index Fund ETF Shares) and XLP (Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR® Fund.) All three have low expense ratios with FSTA the winner in that regard. On the other hand, XLP appears to have a better dividend growth path than FSTA.

Here are the most recent dividend results for these three funds:

FSTA Dividend Growth with 2019 YTD
XLP Dividend Growth with 2019 YTD
VDC Dividend growth with 2019 YTD

Wallmine link for https://wallmine.com/etf/XLP