Investing.com - Consumer staples were one of the leading sectors heading into the close of trading, limiting downside momentum on Wall Street.
The rout in markets last week continued to funnel investor appetite for defensive sectors of the market, boosting consumer staples, which includes makers of household needs like food, beverages and personal care products.
Walgreen's Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:WBA) rose 2% following its mixed fiscal fourth quarter results released last week. The company posted sales that missed expectations, while earnings came in ahead.
Walgreen's struck a partnership with Kroger last week and said that further tie-ups with other retailers were in pipeline in a bid to improve traffic.
Kroger (NYSE:KR) rose 2%, clawing back some of the losses from last week, which had followed a bearish report from Deutsche Bank arguing the retailer was in a “position of weakness,” and needed to speed up its push into e-commerce to compete with rivals Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Walmart (NYSE:WMT).
Campbell Soup (NYSE:CPB) rose 2.4% despite ongoing struggles to appeal to younger consumer base amid flagging sales. The company said in a regulatory filing Friday it will name the next chief executive officer by year-end.
The consumer staples sector was up 1.08% at the time of print, but remained down 7.2% year to date.