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Has Waste Management (WM) Outpaced Other Business Services Stocks This Year?

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The Business Services group has plenty of great stocks, but investors should always be looking for companies that are outperforming their peers. Waste Management (WM - Free Report) 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? One simple way to answer this question is to take a look at the year-to-date performance of WM and the rest of the Business Services group's stocks.

Waste Management is a member of our Business Services group, which includes 190 different companies and currently sits at #11 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 successful stock-picking model that emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions. The system highlights a number of different stocks that could be poised to outperform the broader market over the next one to three months. WM is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for WM's full-year earnings has moved 1.49% higher. This means that analyst sentiment is stronger and the stock's earnings outlook is improving.

Our latest available data shows that WM has returned about 4.24% since the start of the calendar year. At the same time, Business Services stocks have gained an average of 17.24%. This means that Waste Management is outperforming the sector as a whole this year.

To break things down more, WM belongs to the Waste Removal Services industry, a group that includes 9 individual companies and currently sits at #54 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have gained about 5.72% so far this year, so WM is slightly underperforming its industry this group in terms of year-to-date returns.

Investors in the Business Services sector will want to keep a close eye on WM as it attempts to continue its solid performance.


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