Five Consumer Staples ETFs For Defensive Players

Alright, so this is the environment that we're looking at: Rising inflation concerns, falling commodities prices, diminishing risk appetite and several other factors that indicate paring back a portfolio's beta in the near- to medium-term may is probably a fine idea. Sounds like a good time to invest in consumer staples stocks, or in this case, ETFs. Known as much for their defensive traits as much as their lack of sexiness, staples stocks, many of which are reliable dividend plays, could prove to be the place to hide out in the weeks ahead. It's just one day, but here's an interesting anecdote: On Wednesday, just four Dow stocks closed higher and three were staples stocks. One day does not make a trend, but taking a look at the following staples ETFs could prove to be a profitable move. 1) Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR XLP: The king of this ETF genre, don't buy XLP if you're already a Procter & Gamble PG shareholder as that stock accounts for 14.5% of the ETF's weight. If you want P&G exposure without owning the stock, XLP is a great bet. Including P&G, XLP gets you involved with four Dow stocks within the top-10 holdings, Wal-Mart WMT, Coca-Kola KO and Kraft KFT are the others. The expense ratio of 0.2% is ideal for long-term investors. 2) Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF VDC: Speaking of expense ratios, that might just be the reason why VDC hasn't really stolen XLP's thunder when it comes to assets under management. XLP has almost $4.6 billion in AUM while VDC has almost $664 million. That shows there is a big difference between fees of 0.2% and 0.24% (VDC's expense ratio). Since the two funds basically do the same thing and their top-10 holdings mirror each other, XLP is the better bet. 3) iShares S&P Global Consumer Staples Index Fund KXI: We highlighted KXI recently as one to consider if you're craving exposure to Nestle NSRGY, the world's largest food company, but beyond that KXI's biggest holdings are U.S.-based firms found in XLP and VDC, both of which offer far lower fees than KXI's 0.48% expense ratio. 4) PowerShares Dynamic Food & Beverage Portfolio PBJ: Can't decide between Coca-Cola and PepsiCo PEP and Kraft and General Mills GIS, among other food and beverage rivalries? Don't worry because PBJ ensures you don't have to make those decisions. PBJ has been accumulating more and more fans recently, a fact highlighted by the ETF moving to a new 52-week high today. 5) Global X Food ETF EATX: Barely more than a week old, EATX is definitely more global in nature than KXI as four of the new ETF's top-10 holdings are non-U.S. companies. While EATX offers exposure to many of the names found in PBJ, the former offers no exposure to big U.S. beverage names. That, along with the international bias could make for an interesting pairing with PBJ for the investor that loves food stocks, but EATX or PBJ could make for an even better compliment to XLP within a conservative portfolio.