Top 15 Stocks to Buy as Inflation Comes Roaring Back

investing.com:

The year-to-date rally on Wall Street seems to have lost momentum, with stocks coming under pressure recently due to renewed fears over the health of the U.S. banking sector and lingering global growth concerns.

After a five-month rally pushed the benchmark S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 to within 5% of their all-time highs, August has now recorded five losing sessions out of six, heading into Wednesday.

The S&P 500 is off by 2% this month, the Nasdaq is down 3.1%, while the economically sensitive Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks has declined 3.5%. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average has fared slightly better, dipping just 0.7% thus far in August.

We are not yet out of the woods, as the release of the highly anticipated U.S. July CPI report on Thursday could result in heightened volatility continuing in the days and weeks ahead.

The consensus estimate is that the data will show the headline annual consumer price index accelerating to 3.3% from the 3.0% increase seen in June.

Meanwhile, estimates for the year-on-year core figure — which does not include food and energy prices — call for a 4.7% gain, compared to June’s 4.8% reading.

This trend will likely persist until the end of 2023 and early 2024, with CPI potentially rising back towards a 4.6%-to-5.4% range.

I believe that inflation levels could remain elevated for a more extended duration than what is presently anticipated by financial markets.

To help you navigate the uncertain macro backdrop successfully, I used the InvestingPro screener to identify some of the best stocks that tend to deliver strong returns during periods of heightened inflation.

In such times, high-quality dividend-paying stocks with solid fundamentals and robust free cash