Looking for hedges against inflation? Try Apple, Nike, Verizon and stocks with this in common, strategists say

Fraser Jenkins and his team have our call of the day: that investors should look to buy shares in companies with a long maturity of debt as an effective hedge against inflation.

Companies issued debt at an astounding rate through the COVID-19 pandemic. Much of it was a necessary move to meet funding needs, but for some groups it was an opportunity to take advantage of the Fed’s measures supporting credit markets, which provided an ability to increase the maturity of debt, the strategists said.

According to the team at Bernstein, for companies that have long maturity of debt, have issued fixed-rate debt, and are going concerns — i.e. can continue operating while meeting financial obligations — inflation could be a positive thing. “Inflation would erode the real value of the debt relative to earnings (which are tied to the real economy),” the strategists said.

“There is no one solution” to finding suitable hedges for inflation, Fraser Jenkins’ group said, noting that a good response may involve more equities, real assets, gold, and even crypto assets like bitcoin
BTCUSD,
+1.94%.
But “another possible string to the inflation-hedging bow” is companies that emerge from the pandemic with a long maturity of debt.

“A basket of U.S. long debt maturity stocks has outperformed a basket of short debt maturity stocks by 7% this year and trades at more attractive valuations than their short debt maturity peers,” Fraser Jenkins and his team added.

There are a lot of these stocks: the strategists at Bernstein have a list of more than 80. Some of those picks include Big Tech names Apple
AAPL,
+0.39%,
Alphabet
GOOGL,
-0.53%

GOOG,
-0.27%,
Amazon
AMZN,
+0.95%,
and Microsoft
MSFT,
-0.38%,
as well as other technology companies like videogame developer Electronic Arts
EA,
-1.52%
and semiconductor groups Nvidia
NVDA,
+0.12%,
Texas Instruments
TXN,
-0.47%,
and Qualcomm
QCOM,
-0.46%.

Telecom giants AT&T
T,
-0.75%
and Verizon
VZ,
-1.13%
are also on the list, as are retailers and consumer-products groups such as Home Depot
HD,
-1.20%,
Target
TGT,
-0.56%,
McDonalds
MCD,
-0.33%,
Starbucks
SBUX,
-0.47%,
Nike
NKE,
+0.08%,
Kraft Heinz
KHC,
-1.99%,
Estée Lauder
EL,
-1.26%,
and Coca-Cola
KO,
-1.34%.
 

Health and biotechnology stocks like Johnson & Johnson
JNJ,
-0.04%,
Pfizer
PFE,
-0.73%,
Gilead Sciences
GILD,
-1.12%,
Regeneron
REGN,
-0.74%,
and Biogen
BIIB,
-1.20%
also make the cut, as do railroad operators Kansas City Southern
KSU,
-0.63%
and Union Pacific
UNP,
-0.35%.
Defense companies Lockheed Martin
LMT,
-1.59%,
Northrop Grumman
NOC,
-0.74%,
and Raytheon Technologies
RTX,
-1.09%
also qualify.

The buzz

In case you missed it: the Fed is talking-about-talking-about tapering pandemic-era asset purchases of bonds and mortgage-backed securities. While maintaining that the recent burst of inflation would be transitory, the central bank also said it may raise interest rates sooner than expected with two hikes in 2023. 

On the U.S. economics front, investors can expect initial jobless claims for last week at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. It is estimated that 360,000 Americans filed for unemployment last week. At the same time, continuing jobless claims for the week of June 5 are due, alongside the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index for June.

A diamond unearthed in Botswana may be the third-largest ever found. Weighing in at 1,098 carats, it is only slightly lighter than the second-largest diamond on record — also found in Botswana — which sold in 2017 for $53 million.

U.S. President Joe Biden told Russia’s Vladimir Putin that critical infrastructure should be off-limits to cyberattacks, as the two leaders met in Geneva on Wednesday and agreed to cybersecurity talks. The largest oil pipeline in the U.S. was hit by a ransomware attack in May from a group believed to be operating out of Russia.

Wise, also known as TransferWise, plans to go public in London in a rare direct listing — the first for a major tech company on the London Stock Exchange. The popular money-transfer service’s decision to list in London marks a win for the financial center, amid a government push to attract more tech companies.

The markets

U.S. stock-market futures
YM00,
-0.15%

ES00,
-0.20%

NQ00,
-0.33%
are pointing down, set to open in the red as markets react to the Fed’s shifting position on interest rates. European equities
SXXP,
-0.20%

UKX,
-0.40%

PX1,
+0.05%

DAX,
+0.06%
were broadly lower, while Asian stocks
NIK,
-0.93%

HSI,
+0.43%

SHCOMP,
+0.21%
were more mixed.

Gold futures
GC00,
-3.43%
were down more than 3%, as the price of the yellow metal tumbled after the Fed’s policy statement.

The chart

Money that investors borrow from brokers to buy securities or take short positions jumped by $14 billion last month to a historic $862 billion, and is up by $202 billion in seven months. Our chart of the day, courtesy of Wolf Richter at the Wolf Street financial blog, shows this meteoric rise in stock-market margin debt.

“What is important is the trend — the steep increase before every stock-market selloff,” Richter said. “Margin debt is the only known stock-market leverage measure that we have, and is only an indicator of the trend in overall stock-market leverage. It just shows the tip of the iceberg.”

Random reads

Tall tale or whale fail? Professional divers believe the Cape Cod lobster diver who says he was trapped inside of a whale, even if one doctor is doubtful.

Residents of a village in Surrey, England are “under siege” and “living in fear,” as police say mystery catapult attacks continue to rain stones on homes.

Need to Know starts early and is updated until the opening bell, but sign up here to get it delivered once to your email box. The emailed version will be sent out at about 7:30 a.m. Eastern.

Want more for the day ahead? Sign up for The Barron’s Daily, a morning briefing for investors, including exclusive commentary from Barron’s and MarketWatch writers.