3 Stocks to Buy and Hold Even if There's a Stock Market Sell-Off in the Second Half of 2026

The article highlights three relatively non-cyclical “hold-through-the-storm” businesses: EZCORP’s pawn lending (up ~150% over the past year, driven partly by gold tailwinds, with scrap margins rising from ~22% to ~38% YoY), Carriage Services’ funeral homes/cemeteries expansion (May: Knoxville market entry plus a new $60M credit facility), and York Water’s steady dividend track record (raised about $48M in a stock offering to fund its capital program). It flags key risks: EZCORP’s profits may normalize if gold stops rising, Carriage’s meaningful debt increases acquisition-integration/leverage risk, and York Water’s regulated returns and stock dilution—plus rate sensitivity—can pressure shares. Overall, the news is more thematic/positioning than a clear near-term catalyst for markets.

Analysis

The market is likely overpaying for the “recession-proof” label here. EZPW is less a pure defensive than a leveraged call on household stress plus gold; if bullion stops making new highs, the earnings base can compress faster than the revenue line because scrap economics are doing a lot of the work. For a cleaner stress-beneficiary, FCFS is the better read-through than chasing EZPW after its run.

CSV has a more durable setup than the others because consolidation can still create incremental return even in a flat demand environment, but the balance sheet makes it rate- and spread-sensitive over the next 1-3 quarters. Any widening in credit spreads or slower deal integration would hit equity value before operating demand shows up. YORW is the opposite: very stable cash flows, but the equity can underperform because regulated utilities don’t fully escape higher discount rates, and dilution from equity funding blunts the “bond proxy” appeal.

Contrarian view: this basket is only attractive if the macro turns meaningfully worse. In a soft-landing world, the market eventually rotates away from “stability” names and back to businesses with earnings acceleration; in that regime, the upside on these tickers is capped while the downside remains real if rates or gold move against them. The key falsifiers over 1-3 months are a gold pullback for EZPW, lower Treasury yields for YORW, and tighter credit spreads / smoother M&A execution for CSV.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Avoid chasing EZPW after its run; if gold rolls over or scrap margins normalize, use any strength to fade the move via a small short or a paired short against FCFS over the next 3-6 months.
• Prefer a relative-value long CSV / short YORW pair for 3-6 months: CSV has an identifiable consolidation catalyst, while YORW is exposed to dilution and rate-sensitive multiple compression. Cover the short if long yields fall sharply or YORW gets a materially better rate case outcome.
• If the goal is pure defensive beta, hold off on adding these names and keep dry powder; the risk/reward is better after a market-wide drawdown than after a newsletter-driven rotation into “recession-proof” stocks.
• Set alerts rather than acting now: gold trend for EZPW, 10-year Treasury yield for YORW, and credit spreads / acquisition financing conditions for CSV. Those are the variables most likely to reverse the narrative.