Are Finance Stocks Lagging Berkshire Hills Bancorp (BHLB) This Year?
Investors interested in Finance stocks should always be looking to find the best-performing companies in the group. Berkshire Hills Bancorp (BHLB) 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? A quick glance at the company's year-to-date performance in comparison to the rest of the Finance sector should help us answer this question.
Berkshire Hills Bancorp is a member of our Finance group, which includes 887 different companies and currently sits at #3 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 system that emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions, highlighting a variety of stocks that are displaying the right characteristics to beat the market over the next one to three months. Berkshire Hills Bancorp is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for BHLB's full-year earnings has moved 11.8% higher. This signals that analyst sentiment is improving and the stock's earnings outlook is more positive.
Our latest available data shows that BHLB has returned about 0.1% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, the Finance sector has returned an average of -18.4% on a year-to-date basis. This means that Berkshire Hills Bancorp is outperforming the sector as a whole this year.
One other Finance stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year is LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (LPLA). The stock is up 48.7% year-to-date.
For LPL Financial Holdings Inc. the consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 8.7% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
To break things down more, Berkshire Hills Bancorp belongs to the Financial - Savings and Loan industry, a group that includes 32 individual companies and currently sits at #67 in the Zacks Industry Rank.
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Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc. (BHLB) : Free Stock Analysis Report
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