Safe Australian stocks could be very appealing investments in this period of uncertainty, following significant gains in various asset classes, particularly with some of the most volatile investments.
Getting rich slowly could be the safer way to become wealthy at the current valuations, rather than investing significantly at the current high prices.
I always believe there are opportunities that we can take advantage of. In this article, I'll highlight a couple of relatively safe Australian stocks that I'd invest $4,000 into.
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Centuria Industrial REIT (ASX: CIP)
This is a real estate investment trust (REIT) that leases its buildings to what it calls high-quality tenant customers, with 92% of tenants being listed, multinational, or national.
There are three tenants that make up almost a quarter of its rental income – Telstra Group Ltd (ASX: TLS), Woolworths Group Ltd (ASX: WOW), and Arnott's. Pleasingly, its quality rental income is locked in for a long period of time; at the end of FY25, it had a weighted average lease expiry (WALE) of around seven years.
With rental agreements already signed, the business has significant visibility about what its annual income and operating earnings will be each year. In FY26, it's expecting to grow its funds from operations (FFO) by up to 6%, following 2% growth in FY25.
Its rental growth is benefiting from strong tailwinds, including a very low vacancy rate, a growing population, increasing e-commerce adoption, more data centres, and rising demand for refrigerated space (for medicine and food).
At 30 June 2025, it had $3.92 of net tangible assets (NTA) per unit, so it's trading at a 10% discount to this value at the time of writing. It's expecting to deliver a FY26 distribution that equates to a yield of 4.75%. It looks like a good value, safe Australian stock to me.
Coles Group Ltd (ASX: COL)
Coles is one of the largest supermarket businesses in Australia, competing against the likes of Woolworths and Aldi.
We all need to eat, so the business offers very defensive earnings with customers seemingly preferring Coles more than Woolworths. In FY25, its normalised (for 52 weeks) supermarket sales grew by 4.3% and in the first eight weeks of FY26, the supermarket sales were up 4.9% (or 7% excluding tobacco).
The company is benefiting from continued strength in volumes as it invests in enhancing customer value and experience, with e-commerce sales also benefiting from these investments.
Pleasingly, the business is now capitalising on the investments it has made in automated distribution centres and customer fulfilment centres, which can deliver significant efficiencies and savings. With that in mind, I'm expecting the business to deliver higher profit margins in FY26 and also fund larger dividends.
Rising earnings and dividends could be an attractive mixture for investors looking for a safe Australian stock.
