The International Monetary Fund's latest downgrade to its global growth forecasts confirms the anecdotal evidence from the US, China and Europe that recovery in the
developed world is likely to be a long, slow, drawn-out affair with periodic setbacks.

Against that uninspiring backdrop, investors are rightly questioning where they can find reliable and sustainable growth.

It's the combination of reliability, or defensiveness, and growth that is the challenge because in most cases one comes at the expense of the other. Sectors like tobacco and utilities might offer predictability of earnings but they are pretty dull.

Growth on the other hand tends to come highly correlated to the economic cycle so it can be a bit too
exciting at times.

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