How top investors would put $10,000 to work right now

• Causeway Capital CEO Sarah Ketterer likes the look of the consumer staples sector now. After all, its companies generate lots of cash for shareholders regardless of the economic environment. And that makes them a good counterpoint to growth-driven tech names.

• Russ Koesterich, portfolio manager for the BlackRock Global Allocation Fund sees healthcare stocks as likely to stage a recovery. They’re trading at valuations below the sector’s long-term average – and with profits expected to grow double-digit this year, this looks like a rare opportunity to invest in good long-term growth at a reasonable price.

• Ian Harnett, chief investment strategist at Absolute Strategy Research, is looking to buy assets based on the new US treasury chief’s “three arrows”. That means focusing on the investment opportunities around the reshoring trend.

Let’s say you’ve just scored a sweet $10,000 windfall. Congrats on that, by the way. Now, you could play it safe and park that beautiful stack of bills in a money-market fund, where you could earn a steady, risk-free 4.3% a year. But if you’re open to taking on a little more risk for the chance at bigger returns, three investing experts have just shared their top ideas with Bloomberg. So let’s check out where they’d stash ten grand right now – and I’ll give you my take on each notion.

Idea #1: Invest in basic needs.

Some things – food, drinks, and household products – never go out of style. And that’s part of what makes the consumer staples sector so attractive right now, says Causeway Capital Management CEO Sarah Ketterer. Staples are must-have products, so they see steady demand even when wallets tighten. What’s more, these companies typically generate plenty of cash for shareholders regardless of the economic environment. That makes them a good portfolio counterweight to those more exciting growth tech companies.

Here are the ETFs that could offer a good starting point for this play.

The Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund (ticker: XLP; expense ratio: 0.08%) offers a pure play on America’s consumer staples sector for US investors. For folks elsewhere, the SPDR S&P US Consumer Staples Select Sector UCITS ETF (SXLP; 0.15%) provides the same US-focused exposure.

For consumer staples stocks that span the whole world, there’s the iShares Global Consumer Staples ETF (KXI, 0.41%) for Americans – with roughly 63% of its money in US companies and the rest in international ones. And for non-US investors, the Xtrackers MSCI World Consumer Staples ETF (XWCS; 0.25%) does the same job.

And here’s my take.

The big companies in the consumer staples sector are – as you might guess – household names.

Costco and Walmart are the heftiest, making up about 20% of the sector by weight. And they’re both trading near record highs. Coming up behind them are brands like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Philip Morris, and Colgate-Palmolive. With those kinds of names in pantries around the world, it’s easy to see why the sector offers steady cash flow and is considered by many to be recession-proof. Still, they do have ups and downs. With so much international revenue, a strong US dollar can undermine the value of their foreign sales, for example. And that’s one reason why some consumer staples stocks have underperformed in recent years. Still, that makes the sector an attractive destination if you’re looking for diversification beyond the S&P 500, which is heavily weighted in mega-cap tech stocks.

Idea #2: Find cheap growth.

Healthcare stocks look especially spry right now after a disappointing performance last year. The sector barely budged at all in 2024, and its 35% return over the past five years is around half what the MSCI World Index achieved. Still, look at the bright side: that’s created an interesting cheap growth opportunity now, says Russ Koesterich, portfolio manager of the BlackRock Global Allocation Fund.

The global healthcare sector trades at approximately 17x its 12-month forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio – in fact, it’s one of the few sectors trading below its long-term average. And with profits expected to grow a vigorous 17% this year, thanks in part to blockbuster drugs for obesity, there’s a rare opportunity to invest in good long-term growth at a reasonable price. And sure, there’s some risk to the sector’s profit outlook because of drug pricing uncertainty. But aging populations in some of the world’s biggest economies and the expected increases in healthcare spending make this sector an attractive investment area.

Here are the ETFs that could offer a good starting point.

The iShares Global Healthcare ETF (IXJ; 0.41%) provides exposure to big-cap pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device companies and is a safe way to gain broad-based exposure to developed market healthcare stocks. If you’re based outside the US, the Xtrackers MSCI World Health Care UCITS ETF (XDWH; 0.25%) is a good alternative.

And here’s my take.

An aging world population should drive increased healthcare spending in the coming decades, but government budgets across the world are getting squeezed. In the US, potential funding cuts to Medicaid are already top of mind. Those worries, in fact, are one reason why the sector’s valuations look cheap, despite the strong profit growth outlook. Investors simply don’t have a lot of confidence about the accuracy of those optimistic future forecasts. That said, the sector could be a good source of diversification for an otherwise tech-heavy portfolio. And with AI likely to speed the development of new drugs, that could lead to a healthy acceleration in profits.

Idea #3: Buy the “three arrows”.

Of the three ideas, this one may be the most interesting. Ian Harnett, chief investment strategist at Absolute Strategy Research, suggests looking beyond market volatility, tariff expectations, immigration ideas, and potential government spending cuts. Instead, he says, look for opportunities around US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's “three arrows”. They are: achieving 3% real economic growth (that is, adjusted for inflation), shrinking the US deficit to 3% of the size of the economy, and boosting energy production by the equivalent of 3 million barrels per day.

Yep, these targets will be tough to hit – and Hartnett gets that. Nonetheless, he says, it could be highly profitable to invest in construction companies that could benefit from the investment needed to build new factories, real estate investment trusts with exposure to the data centers needed to drive AI growth, and energy tech companies that will be critical to increased power output.

Here are the ETFs that could offer a good starting point.

Tema American Reshoring ETF (RSHO; 0.75%) is pricier than a lot of funds but a theme like reshoring takes a lot more analysis than just following a defined index. So those extra fees could be worthwhile. The First Trust RBA American Industrial Renaissance ETF (AIRR; 0.7%) could also be worth considering: it focuses on small and mid-cap US stocks in infrastructure, manufacturing, transportation, and related services sectors. The Global X Data Center & Digital Infrastructure ETF (DTCR; 0.5%), meanwhile, provides exposure to companies that operate data centers and other digital infrastructure.

And the Range Nuclear Renaissance Index ETF (NUKZ; 0.85%) invests in companies involved in the nuclear industry. It could see an, um, surge in demand, thanks to the massive power requirements needed to run AI data centers.

For overseas investors, I couldn’t find a specific UCITS onshoring-focused ETF. The closest match might be the iShares S&P 500 Industrials Sector UCITS ETF (IUIS, 0.15%) but its stocks don’t mirror the reshoring ETFs listed above. I did find a Data Center REITs & Digital Infrastructure UCITS ETF (VPN; 0.5%) though, and a Uranium UCITS ETF (URNU; 0,65%).

And here’s my take.

I can’t really disagree with the broad strokes here: looking beyond daily headlines and short-term market volatility, and keeping a long-term investing horizon can help you become a successful investor. Reshoring looks like it will continue to be a focus over the next few years, and the US economy and related stocks are likely to continue to benefit from the so-called three arrows. And all of that keeps me optimistic about the outlook for the US stock market, its economy, and its onshoring firms.

However, with recent headlines about DeepSeek, the prospects for more efficient AI computing, and the high expectations and valuations in some of the major AI stocks, I have become a little more cautious about investing in data center infrastructure-related investments.

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