Investors interested in Consumer Discretionary stocks should always be looking to find the best-performing companies in the group. Is Alto Ingredients (ALTO) one of those stocks right now? Let's take a closer look at the stock's year-to-date performance to find out.
Alto Ingredients is one of 246 individual stocks in the Consumer Discretionary sector. Collectively, these companies sit at #3 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 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. Alto Ingredients is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).
Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for ALTO's full-year earnings has moved 18.8% higher. This means that analyst sentiment is stronger and the stock's earnings outlook is improving.
Our latest available data shows that ALTO has returned about 53.1% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, the Consumer Discretionary sector has returned an average of -8.4% on a year-to-date basis. This shows that Alto Ingredients is outperforming its peers so far this year.
One other Consumer Discretionary stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year is Central Garden (CENTA). The stock is up 10.5% year-to-date.
For Central Garden, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 2.2% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
Looking more specifically, Alto Ingredients belongs to the Consumer Products - Discretionary industry, which includes 25 individual stocks and currently sits at #57 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have gained about 4.3% so far this year, so ALTO is performing better this group in terms of year-to-date returns. Central Garden is also part of the same industry.
Going forward, investors interested in Consumer Discretionary stocks should continue to pay close attention to Alto Ingredients and Central Garden as they could maintain their solid performance.
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Alto Ingredients, Inc. (ALTO): Free Stock Analysis Report
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).