Top fund manager Donald Yacktman is continuing to focus on high-quality stocks, instead of the lower-quality issues that led the market’s big rally last year. “It’s been a shift away from things that have more economic sensitivity toward things that are just more predictable,” Yacktman says, adding that his firm is “loaded” with high-quality stocks like Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo. Looking at the stock market like a bond market, Yacktman says that a year ago, spreads between high- and low-quality stocks were such that taking more risk on lower-quality issues was merited. But those spreads have now narrowed. “I think one needs to be very patient and in effect have a lot of high-quality businesses in their portfolio,” he says.

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