Are Medical Stocks Lagging Elevance Health, Inc. (ELV) This Year?
For those looking to find strong Medical stocks, it is prudent to search for companies in the group that are outperforming their peers. Has Elevance Health (ELV) been one of those stocks this year? A quick glance at the company's year-to-date performance in comparison to the rest of the Medical sector should help us answer this question.
Elevance Health is a member of the Medical sector. This group includes 1077 individual stocks and currently holds a Zacks Sector Rank of #5. 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 emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions to find stocks with improving earnings outlooks. This system has a long record of success, and these stocks tend to be on track to beat the market over the next one to three months. Elevance Health is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
Within the past quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for ELV's full-year earnings has moved 0.3% higher. This signals that analyst sentiment is improving and the stock's earnings outlook is more positive.
Our latest available data shows that ELV has returned about 0.4% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, the Medical sector has returned an average of -0.7% on a year-to-date basis. This shows that Elevance Health is outperforming its peers so far this year.
One other Medical stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year is Axonics Modulation Technologies (AXNX). The stock is up 9.8% year-to-date.
Over the past three months, Axonics Modulation Technologies' consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 186.5%. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
To break things down more, Elevance Health belongs to the Medical Services industry, a group that includes 60 individual companies and currently sits at #183 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have lost about 6.3% so far this year, so ELV is performing better this group in terms of year-to-date returns.
In contrast, Axonics Modulation Technologies falls under the Medical Info Systems industry. Currently, this industry has 41 stocks and is ranked #92. Since the beginning of the year, the industry has moved +18.2%.
Going forward, investors interested in Medical stocks should continue to pay close attention to Elevance Health and Axonics Modulation Technologies as they could maintain their solid performance.
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