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Is Duke Realty (DRE) Outperforming Other Finance Stocks This Year?

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For those looking to find strong Finance stocks, it is prudent to search for companies in the group that are outperforming their peers. Is Duke Realty one of those stocks right now? By taking a look at the stock's year-to-date performance in comparison to its Finance peers, we might be able to answer that question.

Duke Realty is a member of our Finance group, which includes 824 different companies and currently sits at #9 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 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. DRE is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for DRE's full-year earnings has moved 1.82% higher within the past quarter. This shows that analyst sentiment has improved and the company's earnings outlook is stronger.

Our latest available data shows that DRE has returned about 5.40% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, stocks in the Finance group have lost about 0.72% on average. As we can see, Duke Realty is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

Looking more specifically, DRE belongs to the REIT and Equity Trust - Other industry, which includes 117 individual stocks and currently sits at #158 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, stocks in this group have gained 0.37% this year, meaning that DRE is performing better in terms of year-to-date returns.

Going forward, investors interested in Finance stocks should continue to pay close attention to DRE as it looks to continue its solid performance.