Is Church & Dwight Co. (CHD) Stock Outpacing Its Consumer Staples Peers This Year?

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Investors interested in Consumer Staples stocks should always be looking to find the best-performing companies in the group. Church & Dwight (CHD) 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.

Church & Dwight is a member of our Consumer Staples group, which includes 193 different companies and currently sits at #13 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 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. Church & Dwight is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CHD's full-year earnings has moved 0.6% higher within the past quarter. This signals that analyst sentiment is improving and the stock's earnings outlook is more positive.

Based on the latest available data, CHD has gained about 4.5% so far this year. Meanwhile, stocks in the Consumer Staples group have gained about 0.5% on average. As we can see, Church & Dwight is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

Colgate-Palmolive (CL) is another Consumer Staples stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year. Since the beginning of the year, the stock has returned 4.7%.

The consensus estimate for Colgate-Palmolive's current year EPS has increased 1.5% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

To break things down more, Church & Dwight belongs to the Soap and Cleaning Materials industry, a group that includes 7 individual companies and currently sits at #21 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have gained about 6.8% so far this year, so CHD is slightly underperforming its industry this group in terms of year-to-date returns. Colgate-Palmolive is also part of the same industry.

Investors interested in the Consumer Staples sector may want to keep a close eye on Church & Dwight and Colgate-Palmolive as they attempt to continue their solid performance.

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Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (CHD) : Free Stock Analysis Report

Colgate-Palmolive Company (CL) : Free Stock Analysis Report

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