These Dow stocks — including Goldman — win big when rates rise

Stephen Lam | Reuters

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, smiles during a demonstration of the newly released Apple products following the launch event at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California, September 12, 2018.

Interest rates are surging with the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury note yield hitting levels not seen in several years on Wednesday.

Certain stocks have track records of strong returns when rates rise, using history as a guide.

The yield rose above 3.15 percent on Wednesday, reaching its highest level since July 2011. Investors are selling Treasury bonds (prices move inversely to yields) amid concerns that rising inflation could lead the Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy faster than the market is expecting. Traders reacted to a better than expected ADP and Moody’s Analytics jobs report and a strong ISM non-manufacturing index number during the day.

CNBC ran a search with Kensho, a hedge fund analytics tool, using the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF as a proxy for the bond market. The screen looked at periods of time when this ETF fell more than 5 percent in three months over the last decade. Since bond prices move inversely to bond yields, this would correlate with an environment of rising rates.

If rates keep rising over the next three months, buying shares of Dow Jones industrial average stocks Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Visa and Apple could be profitable trades.

Those four stocks returned more than 11 percent on average during three-month periods when rates were surging, according to the Kensho data.

Rising rates usually coincide with periods of booming economic growth, which is beneficial for financial and technology companies.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal was a minority investor in Kensho prior to the firm being acquired by S&P.