Investors interested in Consumer Staples stocks should always be looking to find the best-performing companies in the group. Darling Ingredients (DAR) is a stock that can certainly grab the attention of many investors, but do its recent returns compare favorably to the sector as a whole? A quick glance at the company's year-to-date performance in comparison to the rest of the Consumer Staples sector should help us answer this question.
Darling Ingredients is one of 185 companies in the Consumer Staples group. The Consumer Staples group currently sits at #16 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 is a successful stock-picking model that emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions. The system highlights a number of different stocks that could be poised to outperform the broader market over the next one to three months. Darling Ingredients is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
Over the past 90 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for DAR's full-year earnings has moved 23.6% higher. This signals that analyst sentiment is improving and the stock's earnings outlook is more positive.
Based on the latest available data, DAR has gained about 62.8% so far this year. At the same time, Consumer Staples stocks have gained an average of 12.7%. This means that Darling Ingredients is outperforming the sector as a whole this year.
Kraft Heinz (KHC) is another Consumer Staples stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year. Since the beginning of the year, the stock has returned 13.9%.
In Kraft Heinz's case, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year increased 1.7% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
Looking more specifically, Darling Ingredients belongs to the Food - Miscellaneous industry, a group that includes 45 individual stocks and currently sits at #214 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, stocks in this group have gained 5.2% this year, meaning that DAR is performing better in terms of year-to-date returns. Kraft Heinz is also part of the same industry.
Darling Ingredients and Kraft Heinz could continue their solid performance, so investors interested in Consumer Staples stocks should continue to pay close attention to these stocks.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).