Consumer Staples Stocks Take the Spotlight. What the Charts of Walmart, Target, Coca-Cola Say.

A shopper carries a Walmart bag in Montreal this month. (Andrej Ivanov / Bloomberg)

As 2025 heads toward a close, one sector is starting to attract defensive-minded investors: consumer staples. Known for its mature, dividend-paying companies, the group could become even more appealing if interest rates were to ease.

Through the Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund , the sector is flat year-to-date, the weakest of the 11 major S&P 500 groups. On a six-month basis, it again ranks last as the only sector in negative territory. Yet in the shorter term, the ETF has shown resilience, posting the second-strongest gains over the past week and the third-best over the past month. This week, the fund will attempt its first four-week winning streak since a seven-week run began in January. Colgate would help as it looks like it can turn around. The ETF’s second-largest holding, Costco, remains under pressure. The stock traded near April lows last week, and will need to firm up for the group to have a chance.

M&A activity is also stirring interest, indicating some of the stocks could be undervalued. Kimberly-Clark’s acquisition of Kenvue sent the former gapping down to a key round-number level, while TreeHouse Foods is being taken out at nearly a 25% premium. Let us now look at three other names in the sector that are showing attractive technical setups.

Walmart has been a standout in thespace, trading just 4% below its 52-week high, while the benchmark ETF sits 8% off its own annual peak. Walmart is also showing resilience against Amazon, which trades 15% below its all-time high following a bearish evening star on its weekly chart.

Round-number theory is at play, with the $100 level providing strong price memory. This area served as formidable resistance from February through July but has since acted as a floor. It also coincides with the pivot of a bearish head-and-shoulders pattern, which Walmart broke to the upside on Nov. 20 following its first positive earnings reaction of 2025, surging 6.5%. Despite a 10% pullback after a bearish engulfing candle on Oct. 16, the risk/reward profile looks attractive. A long entry here targets a move toward $120 in early 2026, with the bullish thesis remaining intact above $98.

Walmart was trading around $105 Monday.

Walmart stock is showing price memory at the very round $100 number.

Target , a struggling retailer, is down 35% year to date, pushing its dividend yield above 5%. From a longer-term perspective, the stock is now 67% below its all-time high of Nov. 16, 2021. It has closed lower 12 of the last 15 weeks and has lagged peers. Notably it has trailed Kohl’s, which gained 13% over the past three months while Target slumped 12%.

Technically, the monthly chart suggests a potential entry point. This is only the third time in nearly 20 years the stock has touched its rising 200-month simple moving average, with prior rebounds in 2007, 2008 and 2017. The stock is also testing a bullish inverse head-and-shoulders breakout from August 2019. If buyers step in, a double bottom pattern is forming, started on the left side by a bullish morning star just above the $100 round number. A move toward $105 is possible by the end of the first quarter. Remain bullish above $82.

Target was trading around $86 Monday.

Target stock has touched its 200-month simple moving average.

Coca-Cola , a classic defensive play, sits just 3% below its 52-week high. The stock is up 16% in 2025 and offers a dividend yield near 3%. It has risen in seven of the past eight weeks, far outshining rival PepsiCo, which has fallen in 10 of the last 14.

Technically, Coca-Cola cleared a bullish inverse head-and-shoulders pivot at $71 last Friday, an area that can also be read as a bull-flag breakout. The recent late September lows successfully retested the Feb. 11 cup-base breakout, which was a 5% earnings driven gap higher. A move toward $85 is plausible in the second quarter 2026, and the chart remains constructive above $68.

Coca-Cola was trading around $72 Monday.

Coca-Cola delivered a forceful breakout last Friday. Look for continuation higher.

Doug Busch is the senior technical analyst at Barron’s Investor Circle. His technical view is added to stock picks, including those published exclusively for Investor Circle readers. A glossary of technical terms is updated regularly with new entries.