S&P 500 Consumer Defensive stocks: today's ranking and data
The S&P 500 has 33 companies in Consumer Defensive today. It accounts for 5.6% of the market value of the index companies. Its median P/E is 21.7, against 23.7 for the index as a whole.
What Consumer Defensive is and what drives its earnings
What it includes. What people keep buying in a recession: packaged food, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, household, cleaning and personal-care products, tobacco, grocery chains and discount stores, food distribution and farm products.
What drives its earnings. Since volumes barely move, profit depends mostly on pricing power: raising prices faster than costs such as agricultural commodities, packaging, freight and wages. Private-label competition matters too, as do currency moves for multinationals that sell worldwide, and, for retailers, very thin margins where every tenth of a point counts.
How it behaves. It usually falls less than the index in downturns and rises less in expansions, and many of its companies pay steady dividends. That is why it is often compared with bonds, and high interest rates make it less attractive.
The classification is the one used by this site's data provider, similar to but not the same as GICS, S&P's standard: this sector roughly matches "Consumer Staples". Counts may therefore differ from other sources.
All 33 stocks in the sector, by today's multi-factor rank
The rank is the order produced by a quantitative model on data as of Nov 3, 2026: the average of four factors (momentum, value, quality and growth) computed from public data, against the 461 index companies that score. It is a calculation, not a recommendation to buy or sell: it knows nothing about anyone's situation, horizon or risk, and the returns of portfolios built with it are simulated. How it is computed: see the methodology.
| In sector | Index rank | Company | P/E | Market cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 35 of 461 | TGT Target | 16.8 | $73.28B |
| 2 | 39 of 461 | ADM Archer-Daniels-Midland | 13.7 | $33.86B |
| 3 | 64 of 461 | KO Coca-Cola | 28.3 | $413.26B |
| 4 | 67 of 461 | PM Philip Morris International | 30.9 | $329.68B |
| 5 | 69 of 461 | MO Altria | 16.2 | $130.31B |
| 6 | 86 of 461 | BG Bunge Global SA | 16.4 | $18.80B |
| 7 | 115 of 461 | MNST Monster Beverage | 45.1 | $95.43B |
| 8 | 151 of 461 | DG Dollar General | 18.0 | $30.52B |
| 9 | 173 of 461 | DLTR Dollar Tree | 17.9 | $27.43B |
| 10 | 206 of 461 | SJM J. M. Smucker | 62.4 | $14.27B |
| 11 | 211 of 461 | MKC McCormick | 9.2 | $13.75B |
| 12 | 215 of 461 | KDP Keurig Dr Pepper | 36.8 | $49.55B |
| 13 | 224 of 461 | TSN Tyson Foods | 36.6 | $20.88B |
| 14 | 275 of 461 | MDLZ Mondelez International | 21.4 | $86.03B |
| 15 | 308 of 461 | BF-B Brown-Forman | 19.8 | $14.11B |
| 16 | 309 of 461 | SYY Sysco | 20.4 | $37.82B |
| 17 | 316 of 461 | CHD Church & Dwight | 34.6 | $26.61B |
| 18 | 323 of 461 | CL Colgate-Palmolive | 38.8 | $78.87B |
| 19 | 355 of 461 | PG Procter & Gamble | 25.3 | $388.76B |
| 20 | 360 of 461 | COST Costco Wholesale | 50.6 | $465.68B |
| 21 | 363 of 461 | WMT Walmart | 47.0 | $1.04T |
| 22 | 365 of 461 | HSY Hershey | 19.8 | $35.20B |
| 23 | 373 of 461 | PEP PepsiCo | 18.0 | $195.46B |
| 24 | 384 of 461 | HRL Hormel Foods | 36.0 | $12.47B |
| 25 | 414 of 461 | EL Estée Lauder Companies | 112.4 | $40.73B |
| 26 | 420 of 461 | KR Kroger | 38.3 | $40.72B |
| 27 | 441 of 461 | KHC Kraft Heinz | — | $30.99B |
| 28 | 448 of 461 | KMB Kimberly-Clark | 18.8 | $67.82B |
| 29 | 453 of 461 | TAP Molson Coors Beverage | — | $8.22B |
| 30 | 461 of 461 | GIS General Mills | — | $19.52B |
| — | not scored today | CLX Clorox | 18.0 | $12.12B |
| — | not scored today | KVUE Kenvue | 21.9 | $37.11B |
| — | not scored today | STZ Constellation Brands | 13.3 | $25.19B |
"—" under P/E: no positive P/E (negative trailing earnings or missing at the source). 3 stocks do not get a multi-factor score today because a factor is missing; they go last, alphabetically. The full S&P 500 ranking →
Consumer Defensive P/E against the index
| Median P/E | Companies with a positive P/E | |
|---|---|---|
| Consumer Defensive | 21.7 | 30 of 33 |
| S&P 500 | 23.7 | 474 of 500 |
The median is the company in the middle: a few firms with near-zero earnings and huge P/Es do not move it, which is what happens to the average. Loss-making companies have no P/E and are left out.
Guide: P/E ratio explained · all guides
The 10 largest in the sector by market cap
| # | Company | Market cap | Weight in sector | Rank today |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WMT Walmart | $1.04T | 26.5% | 363 |
| 2 | COST Costco Wholesale | $465.68B | 11.9% | 360 |
| 3 | KO Coca-Cola | $413.26B | 10.6% | 64 |
| 4 | PG Procter & Gamble | $388.76B | 9.9% | 355 |
| 5 | PM Philip Morris International | $329.68B | 8.4% | 67 |
| 6 | PEP PepsiCo | $195.46B | 5.0% | 373 |
| 7 | MO Altria | $130.31B | 3.3% | 69 |
| 8 | MNST Monster Beverage | $95.43B | 2.4% | 115 |
| 9 | MDLZ Mondelez International | $86.03B | 2.2% | 275 |
| 10 | CL Colgate-Palmolive | $78.87B | 2.0% | 323 |
Total market value (price times shares outstanding), without the float adjustment S&P applies: the weight is indicative. Companies with two share classes count once.
Insider buying and selling in the last 30 days
From Oct 4, 2026 to Nov 3, 2026, 2 open-market purchases ($23.9M) and 39 sales ($90.4M), filed on SEC Form 4 by directors, officers and 10% owners of 8 companies in the sector. Counted by trade date; grants, option exercises and transfers between the same insider's accounts are left out.
| Company | Buys | Amount | Sales | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HSY Hershey | 0 | — | 20 | $33.1M |
| PEP PepsiCo | 1 | $23.7M | 1 | $4.1M |
| WMT Walmart | 0 | — | 5 | $23.4M |
| PG Procter & Gamble | 0 | — | 10 | $19.7M |
| MDLZ Mondelez International | 0 | — | 1 | $8.5M |
| COST Costco Wholesale | 0 | — | 1 | $1.1M |
| CHD Church & Dwight | 0 | — | 1 | $475k |
| HRL Hormel Foods | 1 | $201k | 0 | — |
Upcoming earnings dates
Dates announced by the companies themselves, from Nasdaq's public calendar (between Nov 4, 2026 and Dec 8, 2026). They are announcements, not measured dates: each company's SEC history is on its earnings page.
| Date | Company | When |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 5, 2026 | KMB Kimberly-Clark | before the open |
| Nov 5, 2026 | MNST Monster Beverage | after the close |
| Nov 5, 2026 | TAP Molson Coors Beverage | before the open |
| Nov 16, 2026 | TSN Tyson Foods | before the open |
| Nov 18, 2026 | TGT Target | before the open |
| Nov 19, 2026 | WMT Walmart | before the open |
| Nov 24, 2026 | SJM J. M. Smucker | before the open |
| Dec 2, 2026 | DLTR Dollar Tree | no time announced |
| Dec 3, 2026 | DG Dollar General | no time announced |
| Dec 3, 2026 | HRL Hormel Foods | no time announced |
| Dec 3, 2026 | KR Kroger | no time announced |
Who reports this week across the S&P 500 →
The other S&P 500 sectors
- Basic Materials
- Communication Services
- Consumer Cyclical
- Energy
- Financial Services
- Healthcare
- Industrials
- Real Estate
- Technology
- Utilities
Dividend yields in Consumer Defensive and across the S&P 500 →
Sources: sector classification, market cap and P/E from the market-data provider (Yahoo Finance), as of the latest close downloaded; Quant500 multi-factor ranking of Nov 3, 2026; SEC Form 4 (EDGAR); Nasdaq public calendar. P/E is trailing twelve months and the median is taken per company, not per share class. Not investment advice.