The Best Consumer Staples Stocks to Buy Now: Kimberly Clark Corp (KMB), The Clorox Company (CLX), Colgate-Palmolive Company (CL)

Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL) sells its products in over 200 countries and territories around the world under such internationally recognized brand names as Colgate, Palmolive, Mennen, Speed Stick, Lady Speed Stick, Softsoap, and Irish Spring.

The company’s diluted earnings per share for the fourth-quarter and full year both increased more than 4% versus the previous year. Worldwide net sales inched up 2% on a 3% rise in global volume. In addition, the company was able to increase its gross profit margin by slightly less than a full percentage point. Going forward, Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL)’s management is confident in the company’s future as a result of its pricing initiatives and further gross margin expansion. In all, the company is projecting double-digit diluted earnings per share growth for 2013.

Boring businesses, fantastic returns

These companies might not excite you, but their track records for rewarding shareholders definitely should. Clorox has paid increasing dividends to shareholders every year since 1977. Meanwhile, in February Kimberly-Clark raised its dividend for the 41^st year in a row, and the company has paid dividends for 78 straight years. Most impressively, Colgate-Palmolive has paid uninterrupted dividends on its common stock since 1895, and has increased its dividend every year for 50 years.

Stocks that provide reliable profits and turn those profits over to shareholders in the form of hefty dividend yields have proven to be great wealth-creators over long periods of time. Buy-and-hold investors know all too well the merits of slow-and-steady investing. These stocks will allow you to sleep well at night and not worry if their businesses will be wiped from the Earth should another recession take hold.

Each of the stocks on this list has market-leading brands, reasonable valuations, and raises their dividends year in and year out. If you’re not buying the hype surrounding the market’s run, these stocks may be just what your portfolio needs. While these stocks’ business models might be derisively labeled as boring, in terms of wealth creation, the consumer staples sector is anything but boring.

The article The Best Consumer Staples Stocks to Buy Now originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Robert Ciura.

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