The coronavirus caused a lot of stress for investors during February and March. But there are some shares that have been less stressful
It's impossible to say that some shares are 'immune' to market declines because the share price is decided by the buyers and sellers of shares each day.
But the below shares have performed very reliably through this period, largely due to their defensive cashflows:
APA Group (ASX: APA)
This business is one of the infrastructure giants on the ASX.
APA Group owns a vast network of 15,000km of natural gas pipelines around Australia with a presence in every mainland state and the Northern Territory. It also owns or has interests in gas storage facilities, gas-fired power stations and renewable energy generation (wind and solar farms). APA owns, or manages and operates, a portfolio of assets worth more than $21 billion and delivers half the nation's natural gas usage.
Its share price is almost exactly the same level as it was before the ASX started falling. The lower RBA interest rate makes APA's cashflow more valuable to the market.
People will be cooking more at home and the southern states are coming up to the colder months – gas usage will remain robust.
It continues to invest in projects that will earn more cashflow for APA in the future and it currently has a FY20 distribution yield of 4.4%.
CSL Limited (ASX: COL)
CSL recently reaffirmed its FY20 profit guidance of US$2.11 billion to US$2.17 billion. Whilst it admitted that COVID-19 is a challenge for the company, it has plans to mitigate the impacts.
Healthcare is one of those things that there is a fairly consistent demand for. Just because there's a pandemic doesn't mean that all the other healthcare needs aren't still there.
CSL is an extremely high-quality company and it still has a long-term growth runway despite its size. It's not cheap but it's another top share that has demonstrated good resilience.
Rural Funds Group (ASX: RFF)
We all need to keep eating food. Rural Funds is one of the most defensive shares on the ASX in my opinion.
It owns a diversified farm portfolio which has a weighted average lease expiry (WALE) comfortably above ten years with built-in rental indexation.
Rural Funds doesn't carry the operational risk, but it does own a healthy amount of water entitlements for its tenants to use.
The REIT retains around 20% of its cash net profit each year to fund further investments for future growth.
As long as Rural Funds' cashflows remains consistent then the underlying value shouldn't change that much either, particularly with the Australian interest rate now so low.
It currently offers a FY21 distribution yield of 6.1%.
Foolish takeaway
All three of these shares are defensive options with reliable cashflow and good medium-to-long-term prospects. At the current prices I'd probably go for Rural Funds for the yield, though if APA expands internationally I'd be even more interested in it.
