The US stockmarket’s best bets for 2022
Kiplinger’s Personal Finance chooses its top tips for next year
Oshkosh
The Biden administration is spending big on infrastructure, providing plenty of work for this builder of specialised lorries. Oshkosh produces cement mixers, “truck-mounted cranes” and other industrial equipment. The firm is also a leader in the emerging field of heavy-duty electric vehicles. It has won a federal contract to update the US mail truck fleet, which will include some electric trucks. A good way to bet on a “greener future”. $104
CVS Health
“Most Americans live within three miles of a CVS pharmacy.” But CVS is not just where people top up prescriptions. It is also where they go to get vaccinated or have minor ailments examined at its “Minute Clinic”. The group is in the privatehealthcare game too thanks to its Aetna health-insurance subsidiary, which covers 39 million people. On just 12 times forward earnings, the stock yields 2.1%. $99
Littelfuse
This electronic-manufacturing business produces the fuses and circuits needed for the ever-expanding category of consumer electronics. Take a modern car: everything from the “heated seats” to the “power steering” needs “its own fuse and circuit”. The stock is up by 17% over the past year and 2022 should be another good year, provided global car assembly lines get back up and running. $287
Prologis
E-commerce is booming, so why not be Amazon’s landlord? This warehouse business is “the industry leader in logistical real estate”. Prologis owns “nearly a billion square feet of space” across 19 countries. It’s so big that “2.5% of the world’s GDP”, or $2.2trn, “flows through” its properties in the form of online-shopping orders. This is a stock to “buy and hold for the next 20 years”. $161
Crown Castle International
This real-estate investment trust owns more than 40,000 mobile-phone masts as well as “approximately 80,000 route miles of fibre cable”. The next few years will bring ever more data demand owing to the rollout of 5G mobile networks and the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT). The shares are on a forward yield of 2.9% and Crown Castle is “a serial dividend raiser”. $202
Chevron
With US tech stocks looking stretched, consider “more traditional value plays”. This oil supermajor offers a 4.6% dividend yield and trades on just 12 times forward earnings,
“remarkably cheap” for the US market. A decade ago energy stocks made up 13% of the
S&P 500 index, but today that has fallen to just 2%. Yet energy markets look more balanced than they have in years now that the pandemic has wiped out lower-cost producers. $113
Realty Income
This retail real-estate investor specialises in the sort of “hightraffic” properties that are immune to the e-commerce threat – think convenience stores and pharmacies. Realty’s “diversified and conservative business model” has withstood the test of lockdown. It has raised its dividend – currently yielding 4.1% – every quarter since the start of 2020. $67