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5 Low-Leverage Stocks to Buy Amid Volatile Market Sentiment
Aparajita Dutta
7 min read

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The U.S. share market ended March 7, 2025, on a volatile note, with the majority of the stock indices closing the trading session barely in the green. While factors like President Donald Trump’s tariff policies and a weaker-than-expected jobs report kept some investors concerned about the U.S. economy’s future growth, others remain optimistic following Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s announcement that the economy is currently in good shape.

In such a volatile situation, an investor might not feel confident enough to invest in the stock market. However, a prudent investor knows that this is the right time to buy stocks that are safe bets. To this end, we recommend stocks like BioLife Solutions BLFS, Berkshire Hill Corporation BHLB, NVIDIA NVDA, The Greenbrier Companies GBX and EZCORP EZPW. These stocks bear low leverage and, therefore, should be a safer option for investors if they don’t want to lose big in times of market turmoil. 

Now, before selecting low-leverage stocks, let’s explore what leverage is and how choosing a low-leverage stock helps investors.

What’s the Significance of Low-Leverage Stocks?

In finance, leverage is a term used to denote the practice of borrowing capital by companies to run their operations smoothly and expand the same. Such borrowings are done through debt financing. But there remains an option for equity finance. This is probably due to the cheap and easy availability of debt over equity financing.

However, debt financing has its share of drawbacks. Particularly, it is desirable only as long as it successfully generates a higher rate of return compared to the interest rate. So, to avoid considerable losses in your portfolio, one should always avoid companies that resort to excessive debt financing.

The crux of safe investment lies in choosing a company that is not burdened with debt, as a debt-free stock is almost impossible to find.
The equity market can be volatile at times, and, as an investor, if you don’t want to lose big time, we suggest you invest in stocks that bear low leverage and are, hence, less risky.

To identify such stocks, historically, several leverage ratios have been developed to measure the amount of debt a company bears. The debt-to-equity ratio is one of the most common ratios.

Analyzing Debt/Equity

Debt-to-Equity Ratio = Total Liabilities/Shareholders’ Equity

This metric is a liquidity ratio that indicates the amount of financial risk a company bears. A lower debt-to-equity ratio reflects improved solvency for a company.

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