ABOUT THIS SERIES
For the better part of the last few decades, the investment landscape was shaped by two powerful and mutually reinforcing forces: interest rates that fell almost without interruption, and a wave of technological innovation that rewarded businesses built on code, networks, and intangible scale. Capital flowed accordingly. Valuations followed. And a generation of investors learned, not unreasonably, that the future belonged to the asset-light, the digital, and the disruptive. The environment is changing. This series of four perspectives explores that shift — making a connected argument that the investors most likely to be rewarded over the next decade are those willing to broaden their definition of where durable earnings are found.
- Part I - Quality Runs Deeper: First Principles, Broader Horizons
- Part II - Consumer Staples: What the Market Has Stopped Seeing
- Part III - Healthcare at the Crossroads: AI as a Scalpel
- Part IV - AI Through a Quality Lens: Finding Durability in the Disruption
Consumer staples stocks constitute one of the oldest sectors and are traditionally more heavily represented in the portfolios of quality-focused investors. Yet under the same label, very distinct sectors coexist: food and beverages, household and personal care products, and food and over-the-counter (OTC) pharmaceutical distribution. Their profit drivers, geographic exposures, and competitive dynamics often have nothing in common. Yet one fundamental characteristic unites them: their products are part of consumers’ daily lives and are often used without them even realising it. These are rituals repeated thousands of times a year, across all economic cycles, tied to habits, memories, and moments of the day that are non-negotiable. The taste of morning coffee, the aroma of childhood yogurt, toothpaste—these are all sensory touchstones that consumers won’t give up, even during a recession. No one has ever sacrificed their Colgate toothpaste on the altar of economic survival.
Read Sébastien Gandon's full article "Consumer Staples: What the Market Has Stopped Seeing".
