Are Consumer Staples Stocks Lagging Lancaster Colony (LANC) This Year?
The Consumer Staples group has plenty of great stocks, but investors should always be looking for companies that are outperforming their peers. Is Lancaster Colony (LANC) one of those stocks right now? Let's take a closer look at the stock's year-to-date performance to find out.
Lancaster Colony is one of 194 individual stocks in the Consumer Staples sector. Collectively, these companies sit at #12 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. Lancaster Colony is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for LANC's full-year earnings has moved 4.5% higher. This signals that analyst sentiment is improving and the stock's earnings outlook is more positive.
Our latest available data shows that LANC has returned about 20.3% since the start of the calendar year. In comparison, Consumer Staples companies have returned an average of 2.5%. As we can see, Lancaster Colony is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.
One other Consumer Staples stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year is Colgate-Palmolive (CL). The stock is up 10.8% year-to-date.
For Colgate-Palmolive, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 0.8% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
To break things down more, Lancaster Colony belongs to the Food - Miscellaneous industry, a group that includes 45 individual companies and currently sits at #68 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have gained about 3.1% so far this year, so LANC is performing better this group in terms of year-to-date returns.
Colgate-Palmolive, however, belongs to the Soap and Cleaning Materials industry. Currently, this 7-stock industry is ranked #24. The industry has moved +9.1% so far this year.
Lancaster Colony and Colgate-Palmolive could continue their solid performance, so investors interested in Consumer Staples stocks should continue to pay close attention to these stocks.
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