The stock market can get choppy at times. In April 2025, the S&P 500 fell more than 10% over three days after President Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs, one of the fastest corrections in recent history. By the time the market finally calmed down and selling subsided, the S&P 500 was down almost 19% from its February peak, just shy of an official bear market. However, almost as quickly as it happened, the market reversed much of its decline a week later after the President announced a 90-day tariff pause, and reclaimed almost all its losses within a month.
The thing about choppy markets like that is that no one can predict them in advance. What we can do is prepare for them by owning businesses built to weather the market’s inevitable storms. Durable characteristics include resilient earnings throughout the economic cycle, a long track record of dividend growth, and demonstrated pricing power.
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Walmart (NASDAQ: WMT), Realty Income (NYSE: O), PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP), and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) each have these key traits. That makes them steady stocks to own before the market gets choppy.
Walmart
Walmart is one of the world’s largest retailers, with more than 10,900 stores in 19 countries and annual sales of $713 billion. That scale gives Walmart pricing power and the leverage to press vendors for lower prices. The company focuses on helping consumers save money, and primarily sells essential products such as groceries and household goods. The company’s focus on delivering value to consumers drives more resilient sales during economic downturns as they trade down from higher-cost retailers.
The retailer has increased its dividend for 53 straight years, qualifying it as an elite Dividend King, a company with 50 or more years of annual dividend increases. That multi-decade dividend growth streak includes several recessions, showcasing the resilience of its earnings.
We saw Walmart’s steadiness on full display during 2025’s choppy market period. While the S&P 500 was down over 5% by the end of April, Walmart’s stock was up over 7%.
Realty Income
Realty Income is one of the world’s largest real estate investment trusts (REITs). It owns a diversified portfolio of retail, industrial, gaming, data center, and other properties, secured by long-term net leases with many of the world’s leading companies (including Walmart, a top-20 tenant at 0.9% of its annual base rent). The company’s leases provide it with very durable income, as most of its rent comes from tenants in industries resilient to economic downturns. Meanwhile, most of its leases feature annual rental escalation clauses (either fixed rate increases or those tied to inflation).
