Yahoo Finance Are Consumer Staples Stocks Lagging Lancaster Colony (LANC) This Year?
Investors interested in Consumer Staples stocks should always be looking to find the best-performing companies in the group. Is Lancaster Colony (LANC) one of those stocks right now? Let's take a closer look at the stock's year-to-date performance to find out.
Lancaster Colony is one of 191 companies in the Consumer Staples group. The Consumer Staples group currently sits at #14 within the Zacks Sector Rank. The Zacks Sector Rank considers 16 different groups, measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the sector to gauge the strength of each group.
The Zacks Rank emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions to find stocks with improving earnings outlooks. This system has a long record of success, and these stocks tend to be on track to beat the market over the next one to three months. Lancaster Colony is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
Within the past quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for LANC's full-year earnings has moved 8.3% higher. This signals that analyst sentiment is improving and the stock's earnings outlook is more positive.
Based on the latest available data, LANC has gained about 14.2% so far this year. Meanwhile, the Consumer Staples sector has returned an average of -2.5% on a year-to-date basis. This shows that Lancaster Colony is outperforming its peers so far this year.
Another stock in the Consumer Staples sector, Colgate-Palmolive (CL), has outperformed the sector so far this year. The stock's year-to-date return is 8.1%.
Over the past three months, Colgate-Palmolive's consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 0.8%. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
Breaking things down more, Lancaster Colony is a member of the Food - Miscellaneous industry, which includes 45 individual companies and currently sits at #154 in the Zacks Industry Rank. This group has lost an average of 1.1% so far this year, so LANC is performing better in this area.
In contrast, Colgate-Palmolive falls under the Soap and Cleaning Materials industry. Currently, this industry has 7 stocks and is ranked #98. Since the beginning of the year, the industry has moved +4.2%.
Going forward, investors interested in Consumer Staples stocks should continue to pay close attention to Lancaster Colony and Colgate-Palmolive as they could maintain their solid performance.
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Colgate-Palmolive Company (CL) : Free Stock Analysis Report
