With financial firms in a tricky spot, analysts have identified 3 stocks in the space where investors can make money now - and they're not the big banks

• While financial markets have gone haywire in recent weeks as COVID-19 has spread, analysts have started providing clients with lists of stock recommendations with particularly strong balance sheets behind them.
• Of those stocks analysts are recommending this week, only a small number of them can be found within the financial sector, a group under pressure as interest rates have been chopped back down to near-zero.
• Business Insider is laying out the financial stock picks with "fortress"-like qualities some analysts are recommending buy up now, none of which are your usual big-bank selection.
• Visit BI Prime for more investing stories.

As COVID-19 spreads around the world - devastating economies and pummeling markets - Wall Street analysts are renewing a phrase JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon popularized during the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009.

"To me, having a fortress balance sheet means you have plenty of capital and practice conservative accounting," Dimon told the firm's class of 2009 summer interns months after stocks finally hit bottom that spring.

Eleven years later, as US jobless claims spike to all-time highs, stocks trade in bear markets, and the coronavirus leaves more than 22,000 people dead around the world, experts are recommending reliable investments for jittery traders.

This week, equity analysts and strategists at Jefferies, Morningstar, and Goldman Sachs provided clients with proprietary lists of "fortress"-like stock picks they think investors ought to consider.

Each firm laid out their own slightly different framework for recommendations, but there are some common qualities: a lot of cash on hand, limited debt, and the overall ability to, in analysts' eyes, weather severe economic turmoil.

Notably, the firms' recommendations from the financials sector are far and few between: many of the names are within consumer staples, healthcare, or industrials, like Honeywell, Coca Cola, and Biogen.

The financial names they did choose to highlight for investors didn't include the big banks, either. They're a vulnerable group under pressure as the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates back down to near-zero, in turn eating into the banks' measures of profitability.

Business Insider dug into those financial stock picks with "fortress"-like qualities some analysts are recommending buy up now, which come down to three: financial technology firm Broadridge and asset management giants BlackRock and T. Rowe Price.

In a March 23 research note from Goldman Sachs led by David Kostin - the bank's chief US equity strategist - the team said just one financial services name, T. Rowe Price, met its criteria for "margin of safety" names.

"Simply put, in the words of Ben Graham, these companies offer investors a 'Margin of Safety' from a valuation perspective that is certainly appropriate for the current chaotic investment environment," they wrote, referring to the famed investor Benjamin Graham's lessons on value investing.

Their list of more than two-dozen stocks were selected with size and liquidity, balance sheet strength, and "attractive" valuations under consideration.

Specifically, Goldman Sachs selected names names with a market capitalization greater than $10 billion and strong balance sheets dictated by a complex, sector-neutral framework showing they are well-positioned to weather negative cash flow. Shares of T. Rowe Price have fallen around 18% so far this year, outperforming the S&P 500's 23% loss during the same time.

The Baltimore-based investment management firm was also the only financial services pick Jefferies analysts highlighted in a note published this week. T. Rowe Price has no long-term debt and $4.2 billion in net cash, Jefferies wrote, with a "strong track-record of capital return."

T. Rowe Price managed some $1.15 trillion in client assets through the end of February, according to a release.

Jefferies, which also highlighted "fortress" names in other sectors including the home improvement retailer Home Depot and biotech company United Therapeutics, selected names based in part on levels of net debt to EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) to examine balance sheet strength.

Meanwhile, Morningstar analysts published their own list of "fortress" selections this week.

Their only financial picks included BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager with $7.43 trillion in assets under management through December 31, 2019, and the financial-technology firm Broadridge.

Morningstar asked its analysts to select two picks from their areas of coverage that are undervalued by their metrics and have "sturdy financial foundations," or in the other words, "balance sheets that can withstand financial shocks."

Broadridge, based in New York, handles technology products and back-end solutions for companies like shareholder proxy voting processing.

It had $234 million in cash and cash equivalents at the end of 2019, according to its latest quarterly earnings report, and reported $1.9 billion in revenue for the last six months of 2019.

BlackRock and Broadridge have fallen 12% and 22%, respectively, so far this year.