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Cyclical and Non-cyclical stocks.

Cyclical stocks are stocks that perform in accordance to how well the economy does.  For example, John Deere sells more lawn mowers when the economy is doing well or perceived to be doing well.

Non-cyclical stocks are stocks that tend to outperform the cyclical stocks when the economy is NOT doing well.  The reason is that people need to eat cereals or smoke cigarettes even though they don't have much disposable income.  For example, Walmart and Coca Cola are non-cyclical stocks that tend to do better when the economy is in a tailspin, not because it sells more when times are bad, but because the stock price performs much better than cyclical stocks like John Deere or Caterpillar.  Conversely, when the economy is doing well, investors tend to dump non-cyclical or consumer staple stocks in favor of  cyclical ones.

Some names of cyclical stocks:  Boeing, John Deere, Caterpillar, Dell Computer, and MMM.

Non cyclical stocks:  Merck, Pepsi, Coca Cola, General Mills, Phillip Morris, and Johnson and Johnson.