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 4.9% of the market value of the index companies. Its median P/E is 23.3, against 23.6 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 Sep 18, 2026: the average of four factors (momentum, value, quality and growth) computed from public data, against the 466 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 | 36 of 466 | TGT Target | 16.4 | $71.87B |
| 2 | 40 of 466 | KO Coca-Cola | 26.5 | $379.70B |
| 3 | 60 of 466 | BG Bunge Global SA | 25.0 | $22.21B |
| 4 | 90 of 466 | MNST Monster Beverage | 41.4 | $87.59B |
| 5 | 121 of 466 | PM Philip Morris International | 27.1 | $293.99B |
| 6 | 123 of 466 | DLTR Dollar Tree | 13.7 | $21.01B |
| 7 | 130 of 466 | MKC McCormick | 8.1 | $13.10B |
| 8 | 131 of 466 | ADM Archer-Daniels-Midland | 23.3 | $41.05B |
| 9 | 147 of 466 | MO Altria | 14.6 | $116.08B |
| 10 | 175 of 466 | DG Dollar General | 15.9 | $27.01B |
| 11 | 196 of 466 | TSN Tyson Foods | 32.6 | $18.56B |
| 12 | 203 of 466 | SJM J. M. Smucker | 57.5 | $13.13B |
| 13 | 205 of 466 | KDP Keurig Dr Pepper | 31.3 | $42.13B |
| 14 | 297 of 466 | BF-B Brown-Forman | 16.7 | $11.90B |
| 15 | 315 of 466 | KVUE Kenvue | 20.5 | $34.21B |
| 16 | 319 of 466 | CHD Church & Dwight | 30.4 | $22.48B |
| 17 | 330 of 466 | PEP PepsiCo | 17.0 | $177.24B |
| 18 | 354 of 466 | WMT Walmart | 38.5 | $849.37B |
| 19 | 363 of 466 | SYY Sysco | 21.6 | $37.91B |
| 20 | 365 of 466 | CL Colgate-Palmolive | 34.6 | $69.73B |
| 21 | 386 of 466 | HRL Hormel Foods | 33.1 | $11.46B |
| 22 | 387 of 466 | HSY Hershey | 23.2 | $34.12B |
| 23 | 394 of 466 | COST Costco Wholesale | 45.0 | $397.05B |
| 24 | 410 of 466 | PG Procter & Gamble | 22.1 | $340.02B |
| 25 | 415 of 466 | EL Estée Lauder Companies | 190.7 | $33.80B |
| 26 | 418 of 466 | MDLZ Mondelez International | 22.3 | $77.66B |
| 27 | 444 of 466 | KHC Kraft Heinz | — | $28.97B |
| 28 | 447 of 466 | KR Kroger | 33.3 | $35.76B |
| 29 | 452 of 466 | KMB Kimberly-Clark | 16.6 | $32.55B |
| 30 | 457 of 466 | TAP Molson Coors Beverage | — | $7.00B |
| 31 | 464 of 466 | GIS General Mills | — | $19.42B |
| — | not scored today | CLX Clorox | 17.3 | $10.05B |
| — | not scored today | STZ Constellation Brands | 11.3 | $20.32B |
"—" under P/E: no positive P/E (negative trailing earnings or missing at the source). 2 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 | 23.3 | 30 of 33 |
| S&P 500 | 23.6 | 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 | $849.37B | 25.0% | 354 |
| 2 | COST Costco Wholesale | $397.05B | 11.7% | 394 |
| 3 | KO Coca-Cola | $379.70B | 11.2% | 40 |
| 4 | PG Procter & Gamble | $340.02B | 10.0% | 410 |
| 5 | PM Philip Morris International | $293.99B | 8.7% | 121 |
| 6 | PEP PepsiCo | $177.24B | 5.2% | 330 |
| 7 | MO Altria | $116.08B | 3.4% | 147 |
| 8 | MNST Monster Beverage | $87.59B | 2.6% | 90 |
| 9 | MDLZ Mondelez International | $77.66B | 2.3% | 418 |
| 10 | TGT Target | $71.87B | 2.1% | 36 |
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 Aug 19, 2026 to Sep 18, 2026, 3 open-market purchases ($1.4M) and 66 sales ($116.0M), filed on SEC Form 4 by directors, officers and 10% owners of 16 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 | $35.8M |
| KO Coca-Cola | 0 | — | 2 | $14.6M |
| SJM J. M. Smucker | 0 | — | 3 | $13.9M |
| EL Estée Lauder Companies | 0 | — | 5 | $11.8M |
| TGT Target | 0 | — | 3 | $11.0M |
| MDLZ Mondelez International | 0 | — | 1 | $8.6M |
| WMT Walmart | 0 | — | 5 | $7.8M |
| PG Procter & Gamble | 0 | — | 13 | $5.0M |
| CHD Church & Dwight | 0 | — | 3 | $3.7M |
| KDP Keurig Dr Pepper | 1 | $250k | 3 | $1.1M |
| TSN Tyson Foods | 1 | $1.0M | 0 | — |
| CL Colgate-Palmolive | 0 | — | 1 | $920k |
| SYY Sysco | 0 | — | 4 | $742k |
| DG Dollar General | 0 | — | 1 | $733k |
| DLTR Dollar Tree | 0 | — | 2 | $471k |
| MO Altria | 1 | $101k | 0 | — |
Upcoming earnings dates
Dates announced by the companies themselves, from Nasdaq's public calendar (between Sep 21, 2026 and Oct 23, 2026). They are announcements, not measured dates: each company's SEC history is on its earnings page.
| Date | Company | When |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 23, 2026 | GIS General Mills | before the open |
| Sep 24, 2026 | COST Costco Wholesale | after the close |
| Oct 1, 2026 | MKC McCormick | before the open |
| Oct 8, 2026 | PEP PepsiCo | before the open |
| Oct 20, 2026 | KO Coca-Cola | no time announced |
| Oct 20, 2026 | PM Philip Morris International | no time announced |
| Oct 23, 2026 | PG Procter & Gamble | 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 Sep 18, 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.