For those looking to find strong Transportation stocks, it is prudent to search for companies in the group that are outperforming their peers. Has Nordic American Tankers (NAT) been one of those stocks this year? Let's take a closer look at the stock's year-to-date performance to find out.
Nordic American Tankers is one of 99 individual stocks in the Transportation sector. Collectively, these companies sit at #7 in 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. Nordic American Tankers is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
Within the past quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for NAT's full-year earnings has moved 104.8% higher. This is a sign of improving analyst sentiment and a positive earnings outlook trend.
Based on the latest available data, NAT has gained about 60.5% so far this year. At the same time, Transportation stocks have gained an average of 7.7%. This means that Nordic American Tankers is performing better than its sector in terms of year-to-date returns.
Another stock in the Transportation sector, XPO (XPO), has outperformed the sector so far this year. The stock's year-to-date return is 48.9%.
In XPO's case, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year increased 8.5% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
Looking more specifically, Nordic American Tankers belongs to the Transportation - Shipping industry, a group that includes 22 individual stocks and currently sits at #42 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have gained about 46.5% so far this year, so NAT is performing better this group in terms of year-to-date returns.
XPO, however, belongs to the Transportation - Truck industry. Currently, this 12-stock industry is ranked #89. The industry has moved +34.1% so far this year.
Going forward, investors interested in Transportation stocks should continue to pay close attention to Nordic American Tankers and XPO as they could maintain their solid performance.
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Nordic American Tankers Limited (NAT): Free Stock Analysis Report
XPO, Inc. (XPO): Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).