Sometimes though, there may seem to be no rush even to consider a SIPP. Retirement can seem a long way off for many of us and pensions often never seem to have much urgency.

But a SIPP can offer an investor benefits – and those can be more substantial over the course of time.

SIPPs have a significant advantage compared to ISAs

There are some things I like about my Stocks and Shares ISA over my SIPP. For example, unlike a SIPP, before reaching 55, I can take money out at any time.

Also any capital gains and income inside the ISA are tax-free, whereas a SIPP is more complicated. There is a tax-free drawdown allowance from 55 onwards, but apart from that the contents could be subject to tax.

Please note that tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future. The content in this article is provided for information purposes only. It is not intended to be, neither does it constitute, any form of tax advice. Readers are responsible for carrying out their own due diligence and for obtaining professional advice before making any investment decisions.

So, why do I bother with a SIPP? One big advantage is tax relief.

In layman’s terms, that means that for every £80 an ordinary rate income tax payer puts into their SIPP, the Exchequer gives them another £20. So they will then have £100 to invest.

For higher and additional rate income tax payers, the financial benefits can be even greater, thanks to more generous levels of tax relief.

Twenty pounds in my example might not sound like much. But that could instead be, for example, a free £20k on an £80k investment. That is enough to get many investors to sit up and pay attention!

Compounding’s a powerful wealth-building technique

We do not know how long that tax benefit may last. Apart from that though, what is the rush? In short, taking a long-term approach to investing allows money more time to grow – something it may do, thanks to the power of compounding.

Say someone invests £80k in a SIPP today which, thanks to tax relief, will be rounded up to £100k. By compounding that at 5% for 15 years, they could more than double their SIPP value to almost £208k.

But if they did that for just 10 years longer, the SIPP ought to be worth far more: some £338k. Adding more years of investing once retired is tough. So it is easier to aim for the same effect, by starting the SIPP investment much sooner!

One potential income and growth opportunity

One share I think SIPP investors should consider for its long-term prospects is consumer goods firm Reckitt Benckiser (LSE: RKT). The 4.6% dividend yield is already attractive, as it sits well above the FTSE 100 average.

But I also believe the Reckitt share price has long-term growth potential given that it currently trades on a lowly 10 times earnings.

Why is Reckitt priced like that? It has had legal problems around product liability in recent years and they may continue. The Middle East conflict threatens to add ingredient inflation and costlier shipping rates to the company’s woes, eating into profit margins.

As a long-term investor though, I feel chipper about Reckitt’s future potential. Its stable of long-established brands such as Dettol and Harpic give it pricing power. Hopefully, that will help it keep making sizeable profits.

The post Why bother with a SIPP now rather than wait 10 years? appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

Despite the index’s strong performance, though, not all of its 100 constituent members are doing so well.

Here are three blue-chip UK shares I think potentially look cheap from a long-term perspective — and worth considering.

Associated British Foods

For years, Associated British Foods (LSE: ABF) has faced a couple of ongoing challenges.

One is how to convince customers that foodstuffs and ingredients deserve a price premium. Using brands like Twinings can help, but ABF’s portfolio contains unbranded as well as branded products.

A second challenge has been getting investors to value the Primark discount clothing chain attractively. Its loyal customer base and strong brand can sometimes feel overlooked by investors.

Those challenges persist as April ends.

Inflation driven by the Middle Eastern war threaten the food business’s profit margins, though for now the company has said the cost consequences for this year ought to be “manageable“.

This month also saw plans to demerge Primark as a standalone listed company. Over time, that could help unlock value if investors perceive it differently out of the ABF structure. Meanwhile, ABF’s foods business is unexciting but well-run and profitable.

Taken together, the company’s price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 14 and 3.6% yield look attractive to me following a 14% share price fall so far this year.

Reckitt Benckiser

A FTSE 100 company that has had an even worse start to 2026 is Vanish-owner Reckitt Benckiser (LSE: RKT).

Its share price has plummeted by a quarter so far this year. The P/E ratio of 10 is even cheaper than ABF. Reckitt’s 4.6% yield is well above the 3.0% average of the FTSE 100 overall.

Reckitt clearly has challenges that have hurt its share price. Take your pick: ongoing legal risks in its infant formula business, ingredient cost inflation, weakening consumer sentiment in key markets, like-for-like sales declines in both North America and Europe in the first quarter – and more.

But I think Reckitt also has the tools to deal with such challenges over time. Its premium brands give it pricing power and it operates in product categories that will endure, like detergents and cleaning agents.

It may take years, but I expect Reckitt will ultimately be worth considerably more than today.

WPP

Still, I could have the balance of risks and potential rewards wrong with Reckitt. Nobody knows the future. An even trickier share in that respect is ad group WPP (LSE: WPP).

The WPP share price has crashed by 21% so far this year. That is on top of a dreadful performance last year, meaning it has more than halved in 12 months.

The clear culprit? AI.

Investors are fretting that AI could eat ad firms’ business.

So far, WPP has not convincingly reassured them. Like-for-like revenue fell 4% year on year in the first quarter.

Still, with its 5.6% dividend yield, deep expertise, superb client roster, and its own plans to use AI to help the business, WPP looks potentially cheap to me, although risky.

I plan to hang onto my shares.

The post 3 FTSE 100 shares I think look undervalued heading into May appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

In short, the thinking was that summer months were a quiet time in both the worlds of business and finance, so it made sense to sell down some shares in May, enjoy a long and relaxing summer, then come back to the market recharged in the autumn.

So, should I ignore my portfolio from the end of this week for a few months?

Yes, no, maybe…

There is actually some research into whether this strategy tends to outperform or underperform the market. As with many such areas, the results are mixed.

If one strategy is proven to deliver consistently strong results, it often attracts investors to use it, which in turn typically reduces its effectiveness.

Nonetheless, some studies have found the ‘sell in May’ approach can work. Others have reached a different conclusion.

Rather than get into the debate about specific months of the year, I want to zoom in on one element of the approach that I think can be helpful.

Constant activity adds costs

The idea of a long summer where months go by without even looking at the value of your ISA or SIPP may seem like something from an Enid Blyton book. But is it such a bad idea?

Research this year by AJ Bell suggests that women investors tend to trade less often than men, but with better results.

As a long-term investor, that makes sense to me. Jumping in and out of shares frequently is closer to trading than investing.

It can push up transaction costs, eating into returns. It also means that an investment case does not have the chance to prove itself over the long term.

As Warren Buffett’s partner Charlie Munger said, “the big money is not in the buying and the selling but in the waiting“.

Indeed, Buffett himself said that if someone was not willing to own a share for 10 years, they should not even consider owning it for 10 minutes.

My approach this summer

Looked at another way, that suggests one ideally ought to be able to own a share confidently without wasting the summer constantly checking its price.

Still, that does not mean I will go away from the market next month.

This summer, I will continue to hunt for what Buffett called great companies at attractive prices that I could imagine holding for a long time (Buffett’s favourite holding period is ”forever”).

For example, one share that I think is worth considering now for its long-term potential is FTSE 100 consumer goods maker Reckitt Benckiser (LSE: RKT).

The company’s portfolio of well-known household brands like Dettol gives it pricing power. Its global footprint helps the company benefit from economies of scale.

But the share price looked costly to me for years.

Down 30% over the past five years, though, the share price is now just 10 times earnings. Add a 4.6% yield into the mix and I think that looks attractive.

A disastrous past acquisition of an infant formula business continues to pose litigation risks. The Middle Eastern conflict threatens ingredient cost inflation, potentially eating into profit margins.

Looked at on the timeline of a decade not just a summer, though, Reckitt’s future looks promising to me.

The post Might it make sense to ‘go away’ from the stock market in May? appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

Is the stock worth considering for an ISA or SIPP in light of this chunky dividend yield? Let’s take a look at the set-up here.

Hurt by high oil prices

Consumer staples stocks are meant to hold up well during periods of economic/geopolitical uncertainty (because people tend to keep buying household essentials). However, it hasn’t worked out this way for Reckitt this year.

One issue for this company is that it’s vulnerable to higher oil prices. Not only do its cleaning and personal care products rely on oil-derived chemicals, but the group relies on petroleum for packaging and oil-based fuel for transportation.

So ultimately, the recent oil price spike is bad news for Reckitt. Note that in its Q1 results, it said that if oil was to remain at $110 per barrel for the remainder of 2026 (it’s closer to $100 now), it would be looking at an increase of £130m-£150m on its input cost base in 2026 (and therefore lower profits).

I’ll point out here that other similar companies have also seen share price weakness in 2026. For example, Unilever and Clorox have fallen heavily since oil prices spiked.

A lack of growth

Another issue for Reckitt however, is that top-line growth has been weak. Looking at Q1 results, growth in Europe and North America was negative last quarter.

The company blamed a weak cold and flu season, soft demand across Europe, and US pricing headwinds for the poor performance. So it’s not just high oil prices that are creating challenges for the group right now.

The positives

The good news is that the company has maintained its 2026 like-for-like net revenue outlook for the core business. Here, it’s targeting growth of 4%-5%.

Looking ahead, the company expects to benefit from a reset of the cold and flu season as well as the launch of ‘superior innovations’ across its product categories. It’s also taking action to improve performance across Europe.

In the emerging markets – where growth was decent in Q1 – it expects continued strong performance, led by China and India. Here, it’s targeting high-single-digit growth over the medium term.

However, it’s worth pointing out the company said that if commodity prices remain high, it anticipates an impact on consumer demand as a result of pressure on household budgets. This is a risk to consider.

Worth a look?

So is the stock worth considering today? I think so. There are obviously risks around continued high oil prices. But eventually I expect oil prices to moderate.

When they do, Reckitt shares should get a lift. So anyone buying now may be able to benefit from both a share price rebound and the 5% dividend yield on offer.

The post Down 21% in 2026, Reckitt shares are now offering a 5% dividend yield appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

Many investors would have expected the FTSE 100 to have done a lot worse. I’m one of them. It peaked at 10,910 just before the war started on February 28. On Friday, it traded around 10,610, just 2.75% lower. It doesn’t look like a once-in-a-decade buying opportunity. Closer inspection reveals otherwise.

Investors are quick to shrug off geopolitical shocks these days. There are several possible explanations. The US is less dependent on Middle Eastern oil than it was. There are hopes the conflict will be contained. After the pandemic, Ukraine, the cost-of-living squeeze and tariffs, investors have learnt that panic selling rarely pays. Buying the dips does. Of course, the resilient mood could swiftly change if events escalate.

Cheap shares abound

However, a heap of stocks have been hit a lot harder than the index as a whole. Housebuilders Persimmon, Berkeley Group Holdings and Barratt Redrow all plunged roughly 25% as higher borrowing costs, weaker demand and rising costs spooked investors. They’ve rebounded in recent days but still sit near 10-year lows. The sector is likely to remain volatile for some time, but the sell-off looks excessive to me.

The Reckitt Benckiser (LSE: RKT) share price is also a lot lower than it was a decade ago. Its 2017 acquisition of Mead Johnson Nutrition backfired amid a blizzard of lawsuits over its premature baby formula. Supply chain disruption, inflation and slower demand in developed markets added to the strain. In 2024, one of its warehouses was destroyed by a tornado.

Reckitt shares can rebound

Yet on 5 March, the Dettol, Nurofen and Durex owner reported a 5% rise in full-year revenues to £14.2bn, driven by emerging markets. Adjusted pre-tax profits climbed 5.2% to £3.32bn. The shares look stunningly cheap to me. Its price-to-earnings ratio has collapsed to below 0.6, having been above 20 not so long ago. The trailing dividend yield sits at 4.2%, well above historic norms.

It still faces challenges, amid weak European demand and fading enthusiasm for consumer staples. The Iran war and oil price spike could drive up costs and hit demand. Yes I think Reckitt is well worth considering with a long-term view.

Long-term recovery plays

Shares in telecoms giant Vodafone are up 85% over the last year but still trade below levels seen a decade ago. Legal & General is also near a 10-year low but offers the highest trailing dividend yield on the FTSE 100 at 8.4%. Spirits giant Diageo is also temptingly cheap. Patience is required though.

Autotrader, Bunzl, Croda, Entain, Intertek and Rightmove are also back around 2016 levels. I’m not saying they’re all ripe for a recovery. Turning round an ailing company takes time. It might never happen. Buy I can see bags of opportunity in today’s market. If volatility returns in the days ahead, there may be even more.

The post Are we staring at once-in-a-decade chance to buy cut-price UK stocks? appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

Please note that tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future. The content in this article is provided for information purposes only. It is not intended to be, neither does it constitute, any form of tax advice. Readers are responsible for carrying out their own due diligence and for obtaining professional advice before making any investment decisions.

There’s no denying it, this is a spooky time to buy shares. Global stock markets remain on tenterhooks as investors wait to see the next turn of events in the Middle East.

FTSE 100 investors must be brave

The FTSE 100‘s already had a correction, defined as a fall of at least 10%, and there could be more volatility to come. We won’t know from one day to the next. There’s one thing we do know. Loads of top blue-chips are already available at greatly reduced valuations, and offer higher yields too. Many investors relish moments like these.

The key is to choose targets carefully, and only buy with a long-term view of at least five years. That gives time for short-term volatility to pass, as it always does. We’ve already had three market shocks this decade, triggered by Covid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Donald Trump’s ‘liberation day’ tariffs.

Each time, markets rebounded strongly. Those brave enough to buy at the point of maximum fear were rewarded. But as ever with equities, there are no guarantees.

Investors have options. They could target companies likely to benefit from today’s uncertainty, such as oil giants BP and Shell, or defence group BAE Systems. Alternatively, they could stick with steadier performers such as Admiral Group or a defensive stalwart British American Tobacco.

Reckitt’s dirt cheap today

Another approach is to look for stocks that have taken a beating and look better value as a result. Around 10 FTSE 100 companies have crashed 20% or more in the last month, including consumer goods group Reckitt Benckiser (LSE: RKT).

Reckitt, which owns brands such as Dettol, Nurofen, Durex and Gaviscon, looks strikingly cheap. Its price-to-earnings ratio has collapsed to just 0.55, having been above 20 not so long ago. Yet the underlying business is still delivering. On 5 March, it reported a solid 5% rise in full-year revenues to £14.2bn, driven by strong growth in emerging markets. Adjusted pre-tax profits climbed 5.2% to £3.32bn.

The board also lifted the full-year dividend by 5% to 212.2p, on top of a chunky special payout earlier this year. Today, the trailing yield stands at 4.25%. That’s a lot more than usual.

However, the stock was struggling even before Iran. The Reckitt share price is flat over one year and down 20% over five, as consumer goods stocks fell out of favour and demand softened in Europe. The current crisis will double down on that. Reckitt has also struggled to rebuild investor confidence after a patchy few years. There’s no guarantee they’ll come flocking back.

Personally, I think it’s worth considering with a long-term view. But investors will need patience. For those willing to be brave, this could be a rare chance to buy quality FTSE 100 shares at reduced prices. But only with that long-term horizon.

The post Is this market correction a brilliant buying opportunity for Stocks and Shares ISA investors? appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

The FTSE 100 has withstood today’s geopolitical worries remarkably well, slipping less than 2% over the last month. It’s still up 18.5% over 12 months, with dividends on top. Sectors such as defence, energy and mining have proved resilient amid Middle East turmoil. But some individual stocks have taken a real beating.

I usually consider a company cheap when its price-to-earnings ratio falls below 12 or 13, and really cheap when it drops into single digits. These two are trading at fractional values.

Reckitt shares are down

Health, hygiene and home-care group Reckitt Benckiser (LSE: RKT), which owns brands such as Dettol, Nurofen, Durex and Gaviscon, has a P/E of just 0.6. Last time I looked, it was above 20. Yet on 5 March it reported a solid 5% rise in full-year revenues to £14.2bn, helped by strong growth in emerging markets. Adjusted pre-tax profits climbed 5.2% to £3.32bn. 

The board also increased the total full-year dividend by 5% to 212.2p. That follows on the heels of a 235p special dividend in February.

Despite that, the shares have dropped 17% in the last month and are up just 2.5% over the year. They’re roughly 15% lower than five years ago.

Trading is weaker in Europe, as a mild winter hits demand for cold and flu remedies. Consumer goods stocks have also fallen out of favour more broadly as investors fear the Iran war will drive up inflation. Reckitt has struggled to regain the market’s confidence after years of bumpy performance and investors seem reluctant to give it the benefit of the doubt today.

Personally, I think Reckitt is worth considering with a long-term view, especially with a trailing dividend yield close to 4%. Yet I’m a little wary. Right now, investors just aren’t that into it.

Legal & General shares are also flat

Legal & General Group (LSE: LGEN) looks even cheaper on paper. Its P/E sits around 0.3, which is nonsensically low. Earnings per share growth has been jumping around all over the place lately, as my table shows. So has the P/E.

Legal & General should be doing better, having announced its biggest ever share buyback on 11 March, worth £1.2bn. Full-year core operating profit rose about 6% to £1.62bn, but that was slightly below forecasts.

The number most investors focus on is the yield, now the highest on the FTSE 100 at 8.9% on a trailing basis. The board just increased the payout 2%, which looks set to be the benchmark going forward. The catch is that it’s only covered around 1.1 times by earnings, so it isn’t completely bulletproof.

The Legal & General share price has slipped roughly 8% during the recent market turbulence. It’s up only about 2.5% over the last year and remains roughly 15% lower than five years ago.

I think it’s worth considering for income-focused investors but we may have to wait some time to see sustained growth. Both these shares look ridiculously cheap to me but they have their issues too.

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But when considering a SIPP, it’s critical to identify the right stocks from day one. In most cases, this means the boring — but reliable — options.

Here’s one example that perfectly demonstrates this strategy.

Planning in decades, not years

Think about the brands you see every day in high street stores — Dettol, Nurofen, Durex, Gaviscon. That’s Reckitt Benckiser (LSE: RKT). Some people may not even know the company name, but they definitely know its brands.

As a consumer goods manufacturer, it sells health, hygiene and home‑care products all over the world. A lot of what it sells is everyday ‘must‑have’ stuff: cleaning sprays, painkillers, cold and flu remedies and baby formula. People buy these items in good times and bad, making sales steadier than luxury fashion, car makers or similar cyclical industries.

In 2024, the company’s like‑for‑like sales grew by 1.4%, while adjusted operating profit grew by 8.6%. Meanwhile, profit margins remained above average, at around 24.5%. That tells you two things: it managed to grow in a tricky year, and is good at turning sales into profit.

Why Reckitt can work well in a SIPP

People still need painkillers and cleaning products even in a recession, smoothing out volatility compared with riskier shares. And strong brand power makes it easier to charge higher prices, even when costs go up. Plus, it sells globally, spreading the risk if one market has a wobble.

The dividend yield has mostly sat around 3-4% in recent years, supported by a record of paying and gently growing dividends over time. Inside a SIPP, those dividends can be reinvested without tax, helping your pot grow faster.

With both return on equity (ROE) and return on invested capital (ROCE) in the mid‑teens, it’s clearly a company that knows how to turn money into profit. That’s what you want from a core, long‑term holding in a SIPP.

The downsides and risks

Reckitt’s higher-than-average P/E adds a risk of disappointment if growth slows. Unlike a value stock with more immediate recovery potential, this is a high-priced but established slow-growth stock. But in a cost‑of‑living squeeze, some shoppers swap branded products for supermarket own‑label, hurting profits.

Furthermore, it carries a fair bit of debt, with a debt‑to‑equity ratio around 1.5. When used effectively, debt can be beneficial — but if profits slip, it can become problematic.

So, is it worth a look for a SIPP?

If you’re building a SIPP for the long haul, Reckitt is the kind of share that can sit quietly in the background, doing its job while you get on with life. It sells products people actually use every day, it’s still growing profits, it pays a reasonable dividend, and it has the sort of resilience that can help you sleep at night.

For those reasons, I think it’s a name worth considering for a UK retirement portfolio.

But it shouldn’t be considered alone – ideally, a retirement portfolio should include a mix of stocks from other sectors and geographical regions. Other top options to consider include Unilever or National Grid — similarly defensive, sustainable (but boring) stocks.

The post The long game: how to identify retirement-ready SIPP stocks appeared first on The Twelfth Magpie.

But a strong recovery has already started and, if that continues, the next few years could be highly lucrative for shareholders.

When considering stocks in this type of situation, it’s critical to assess why they suffered and if the problem was a one-off issue.

Weighing up risks vs growth

The main reason behind Reckitt’s losses was the catastrophic acquisition of Mead Johnson, mainly due to a legal case around its infant formula Enfamil after a baby died. The company allegedly failed to warn that cow’s milk-based formulas carry elevated necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) risk in premature infants.

It suffered a major recall in 2024, leading to chronic operational inconsistency such as weak sales, supply chain disruptions and input cost inflation that pricing couldn’t offset.

Despite a trial win in favour of Reckitt, the company’s still contemplating various options for the business, including a potential sale, signalling the litigation risk is existential. 

For 2026 investors, this is a material risk that could wipe out years of margin gains and dividend growth.

The case for recovery

Reckitt’s genuinely improving its profits through a combination of cost-cutting and real business growth. In the first half of 2025, its profit margins expanded by 1.1%, and the company cut fixed costs by 1.9% compared to a year earlier. More importantly, its core brands (health, hygiene, nutrition) grew 4.2% in the first half and accelerated to 6.7% by Q3 2025, with strong momentum in emerging markets like China (+15.5%).

Earnings per share grew 4.4% in the first half, and management expects this to continue into 2026. The dividend is forecast at 4.2% yield with sustainable growth.

At £60 a share, 396 of them would payout around $1,000 a year in dividends, costing £23,760. That’s no small amount to put into one stock, so I’d need to be fairly sure about its future prospects.

If Reckitt can exit Mead Johnson by mid-2026 with litigation capped below $1.5bn, the turnaround story survives and Core Reckitt could deliver 5%-8% returns. But if Mead Johnson remains attached or settlement costs exceed $2bn, the entire recovery narrative breaks down and the stock could fall sharply. The litigation risk’s now the dominant variable, not margin expansion.

The bottom line

Unfortunately, this is an ‘execution and litigation lottery’, not a clean turnaround play — which is why valuations remain elevated despite genuine operational progress.

I’ve remained bullish on Reckitt’s recovery over the past year, but taking in all factors, it remains too risky for me to invest more now. For investors looking for a safer — albeit lower yield — option, I think Unilever‘s a better option to consider. The stock’s also suffered losses under a high-inflation environment, with consumers opting for lower-cost alternatives.

But with interest rates set to drop in 2026, it could see a notable recovery. In the long term, I think the stock’s better-positioned to deliver reliable income.

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Nevertheless, with economic concerns on the rise both here and across the pond in the US, the market has started to pull back slightly since the end of October. And some bearish investors have started to speculate that a new stock market correction is about to kick off.

Given that valuations have gotten stretched, it’s easy to see why some investors are getting nervous. But it’s important to remember that predicting the stock market in the short term is exceptionally difficult. Nevertheless, let’s assume the worst and say disaster’s looming.

What are the best stocks to buy now to protect a portfolio from a volatile market downturn?

Recession-resistant stocks

During economic downturns, most businesses suffer a slowdown in sales and demand. But that’s not the case for certain industries.

Consumer staples, utilities, and defence have historically continued to chug along nicely, given that demand remains largely unaffected by temporary slowdowns in economic activity. And looking across these defensive sectors, Reckitt Benckiser (LSE:RKT), National Grid (LSE:NG.), and BAE Systems (LSE:BA.) have all proven to be recession-resistant businesses in the past.

Reckitt’s essential household products across its various brands, such as Dettol and Strepsils, have kept revenues and dividends flowing. National Grid operates with long multi-year development contracts often backed by government spending that keeps earnings growing throughout the economic cycle. BAE Systems is in a similar situation, with national defence budgets often being maintained even during recessions.

All investments have risk

Sadly, past performance doesn’t guarantee future returns. And even with their desirable defensive traits, each of these UK shares still has its weak spots.

Reckitt Benckiser remains exposed to input cost inflation, and it may struggle to pass onto consumers during a recession. As such, even if sales remain stable or continue to grow, earnings might still come under temporary pressure.

Meanwhile, National Grid’s a heavily regulated entity with price caps limiting earnings growth – a significant handicap for a business that relies on substantial debt financing. And as for BAE Systems, with governments being its primary customer, the business is sensitive to changes in policy.

Even if defence spending remains uncut, national defence projects can nonetheless be postponed or delayed as part of austerity measures or shifting political priorities, causing growth to slump.

The bottom line

Despite their challenges and threats, all three of these businesses have demonstrated a knack for navigating through weak operating environments and emerging stronger than before. That’s why, even with their risks, I think investors who want to be more defensive in the current market climate may want to consider taking a closer look.

Yet these aren’t the only UK shares I’ve got on my radar right now.

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