Investors interested in Medical stocks should always be looking to find the best-performing companies in the group. Agilon Health (AGL) 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? Let's take a closer look at the stock's year-to-date performance to find out.
Agilon Health is a member of our Medical group, which includes 912 different companies and currently sits at #7 in the Zacks Sector Rank. The Zacks Sector Rank includes 16 different groups and is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors.
The Zacks Rank is a proven system that emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions, highlighting a variety of stocks that are displaying the right characteristics to beat the market over the next one to three months. Agilon Health is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
Within the past quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for AGL's full-year earnings has moved 33.5% higher. This shows that analyst sentiment has improved and the company's earnings outlook is stronger.
Based on the latest available data, AGL has gained about 447% so far this year. Meanwhile, stocks in the Medical group have gained about 4.8% on average. As we can see, Agilon Health is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.
Illumina (ILMN) is another Medical stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year. Since the beginning of the year, the stock has returned 73.6%.
In Illumina's case, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year increased 3% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
To break things down more, Agilon Health belongs to the Medical Services industry, a group that includes 72 individual companies and currently sits at #92 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have gained about 3.3% so far this year, so AGL is performing better this group in terms of year-to-date returns.
In contrast, Illumina falls under the Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry. Currently, this industry has 438 stocks and is ranked #166. Since the beginning of the year, the industry has moved +11.3%.
Investors with an interest in Medical stocks should continue to track Agilon Health and Illumina. These stocks will be looking to continue their solid performance.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).