Here's where to hide from a late-summer swoon
S & P Global told clients Monday that late summer is the worst-performing time of year, according to historical stats. If a market sell-off does occur, where can investors hide and which stocks should they avoid, relying on the past as a guide? Using Kensho, we looked for which S & P 500 stocks outperformed and underperformed during market declines of 5 percent or more which began in July, August and September since 2005. Here is what we found ... During the last decade, utilities stocks dominated the list of names that did relatively well during late-summer swoons. The top performer was Consolidated Edison , which traded up 1.1 percent on average during the time periods. So what names should you avoid during the market drops? Financial and energy companies are among the worst performers during July, August and September market declines. These high-beta sectors are the most levered to the economy and tend to use a lot of debt. The worst performer was AIG , the insurance company, which was down 27.1 percent on average. Not far behind was REIT General Growth Properties , which declined 19.7 on average in the instances. Disclosure: NBCUniversal, parent of CNBC, is a minority investor in Kensho.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters