Finance Glossary

Big uglies are established companies with a history of steady growth and small, regular returns. Traditionally, big uglies have been companies in hard industries such as coal, oil, steel and mining as well as utilities. Today, however, many stocks with similar behaviors and history might be considered big uglies, including large banks, hardware makers, and producers of consumer staples. Whatever the case, big uglies are affordable stocks associated with slow, long-term growth and low price-to-earnings ratios. This behavior  makes them unappealing to short-term investors, but potentially useful for a balanced, long-term portfolio for the risk adverse. Big uglies tend to be recession-proof and remain steady in volatile markets.  Since they are large companies, they operate internationally, meaning that a downturn in one country’s market can be balanced out by success elsewhere.