Sleep-at-night stocks for those hedging or risk averse
PonyWang

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell undercut pivot expectations and dented stocks and bonds in his recent Congressional testimony.
The S&P 500 (SP500) (NYSEARCA:SPY), Nasdaq (COMP.IND), Nasdaq 100 (NDX) (QQQ) and Dow (DJI) (DIA) all fell more than 1% yesterday. The S&P (IVV) (VOO) is still above its 200-day moving average of 3,940 and survived a double test of critical technical levels last week, according to Morgan Stanley.
But with further inversion of the yield curve (with the 2s10s more than 1 percentage point apart for the first time since 1981) the soft landing scenario becomes harder to manifest.
BofA ran three screens for "sleep at night" stocks.
The high-quality defensives screen includes S&P 500 stocks "in the bottom quintile by GDP data" and are ranked B+ or above in S&P by S&P Quality Rank.

MarketAxess Holdings (MKTX), GDP beta -0.60, S&P quality rank A
CarMax (KMX), -0.70, B+
Activision Blizzard (ATVI), -0.60, A-
PulteGroup (PHM), -0.54, B+
AbbVie (ABBV), -0.44, A-
Tractor Supply (TSCO), -0.53, A+
Equifax (EFX), -0.45, B+
FleetCor (FLT), -0.38, B+
Kroger (KR), -0.32, A-
McCormick & Co. (MKC), -0.29, A-
Lowe's (LOW), -0.31, A+
Lennar (LEN), -0.31, A
AutoZone (AZO), -0.30, B+
Humana (HUM), -0.28, A-
Chipotle (CMG), -0.28, B+

The consistent dividend growers screen ranks S&P stocks that have consistently growth their dividends each year from 1981-2022:

Walmart (WMT), dividend growth CAGR over period 19.1%
Medtronic (MDT), 15.2%
McDonald's (MCD), 14.5%
Automatic Data Processing (ADP), 13.2%
Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), 12.8%
Sherwin-Williams (SHW), 12.6%
Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), 12.3%
Target (TGT), 11.4%
J&J (JNJ), 11.4%
Hormel (HRL), 11.2%
Nordson (NDSN), 10.5%
PepsiCo (PEP), 10.4%
Becton, Dickinson (BDX), 10.3%
W.W. Grainger (GWW), 10.1%
Coca-Cola (KO), 9.2%

"In downturns, low volatility stocks typically outperform, but we see several differences this cycle vs. prior downturns (e.g., persistent inflation, healthy consumer/corporate balance sheets, etc.), where certain cyclicals can still outperform, especially the ones that exhibited lower volatility and improved quality in recent years," strategist Savita Subramanian wrote in a note.
In the new low volatility stocks screen, BofA identified companies that saw lower 6-month and 1-year betas than the 5-year beta, have a lower beta than 1, and saw the biggest decline in 6-month beta vs. the 5-year beta:

Humana (HUM), 5-year beta 0.83, 1-year beta 0.47, 6-month beta 0.27, change vs. 5-year beta -68%
McKesson (MCK), 0.77, 0.39, 0.28, -64%
Cigna (CI), 0.94, 0.52, 0.38, -60%
Lamb Weston (LW), 0.84, 0.65, 0.37, 56%
Elevance Health (ELV), 0.93, 0.53, 0.42, 55%
Molina Healthcare (MOH), 0.88, 0.50, 0.40, 55%
Activision Blizzard (ATVI), 0.64, 0.31, 0.30, 54%
W.R. Berkeley (WRB), 0.86, 0.49, 0.40, 54%
Cardinal Health (CAH), 0.80, 0.50, 0.38, 52%
UnitedHealth (UNH), 0.90, 0.55, 0.44, 51%
Incyte (INCY), 0.73, 0.55, 0.36, 50%
Globe Life (GL), 1.04, 0.66, 0.53, 49%
Merck (MRK), 0.54, 0.28, 0.28, 49%
Ulta Beauty (ULTA), 1.13, 0.95, 0.58, 48%
Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), 0.54, 0.29, 0.28, 48%

Screen for dividends and dividend grades.