Investors interested in Transportation stocks should always be looking to find the best-performing companies in the group. Has Heartland Express (HTLD) been one of those stocks this year? Let's take a closer look at the stock's year-to-date performance to find out.
Heartland Express is a member of our Transportation group, which includes 99 different companies and currently sits at #5 in the Zacks Sector Rank. The Zacks Sector Rank gauges the strength of our 16 individual sector groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups.
The Zacks Rank is a proven model that highlights a variety of stocks with the right characteristics to outperform the market over the next one to three months. The system emphasizes earnings estimate revisions and favors companies with improving earnings outlooks. Heartland Express is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
Within the past quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for HTLD's full-year earnings has moved 117.5% higher. This signals that analyst sentiment is improving and the stock's earnings outlook is more positive.
Based on the most recent data, HTLD has returned 48.8% so far this year. Meanwhile, the Transportation sector has returned an average of 8.4% on a year-to-date basis. As we can see, Heartland Express is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.
One other Transportation stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year is Kirby (KEX). The stock is up 33.1% year-to-date.
In Kirby's case, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year increased 2.3% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
To break things down more, Heartland Express belongs to the Transportation - Truck industry, a group that includes 12 individual companies and currently sits at #89 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, stocks in this group have gained 34.6% this year, meaning that HTLD is performing better in terms of year-to-date returns.
In contrast, Kirby falls under the Transportation - Shipping industry. Currently, this industry has 22 stocks and is ranked #44. Since the beginning of the year, the industry has moved +47.6%.
Heartland Express and Kirby could continue their solid performance, so investors interested in Transportation stocks should continue to pay close attention to these stocks.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).