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? Let's take a closer look at the stock's year-to-date performance to find out.
Darling Ingredients is a member of our Consumer Staples group, which includes 179 different companies and currently sits at #14 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. Darling Ingredients is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for DAR's full-year earnings has moved 14.2% higher. This shows that analyst sentiment has improved and the company's earnings outlook is stronger.
Our latest available data shows that DAR has returned about 63.8% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, the Consumer Staples sector has returned an average of 1.7% on a year-to-date basis. As we can see, Darling Ingredients is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.
Scholastic (SCHL) is another Consumer Staples stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year. Since the beginning of the year, the stock has returned 31.7%.
Over the past three months, Scholastic's consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 31.5%. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
To break things down more, Darling Ingredients belongs to the Food - Miscellaneous industry, a group that includes 41 individual companies and currently sits at #200 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, stocks in this group have lost 3.6% this year, meaning that DAR is performing better in terms of year-to-date returns.
On the other hand, Scholastic belongs to the Publishing - Books industry. This 2-stock industry is currently ranked #3. The industry has moved +26.1% year to date.
Investors with an interest in Consumer Staples stocks should continue to track Darling Ingredients and Scholastic. These stocks will be looking to continue their solid performance.
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Darling Ingredients Inc. (DAR): Free Stock Analysis Report
Scholastic Corporation (SCHL): Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).