PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Carl Peters AU - Patrick Egan TI - The Performance of Defensive Investments AID - 10.3905/jai.2001.319010 DP - 2001 Sep 30 TA - The Journal of Alternative Investments PG - 49--56 VI - 4 IP - 2 4099 - https://pm-research.com/content/4/2/49.short 4100 - https://pm-research.com/content/4/2/49.full AB - Defensive investments are defined here as those asset classes that have attracted funds during periods of stock market weakness. Some of these asset classes such as cash, gold, or government bonds benefit most when passive investments take a flight-to-quality. Others are more proactively employed by investors to take advantage of the cause of equity weakness. Taken together, these asset classes make up the category of defensive investments. How well they performed during specific periods of stock market weakness and in general over long investment horizons, is the subject of study of this article.