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Is Rent-A-Center (RCII) Stock Outpacing Its Consumer Discretionary Peers This Year?

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Investors interested in Consumer Discretionary stocks should always be looking to find the best-performing companies in the group. Rent-A-Center 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 RCII and the rest of the Consumer Discretionary group's stocks.

Rent-A-Center is one of 243 companies in the Consumer Discretionary group. The Consumer Discretionary group currently sits at #9 within the Zacks Sector Rank. The Zacks Sector Rank considers 16 different sector groups. The average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups is measured, and the sectors are listed from best to worst.

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. RCII is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

Within the past quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for RCII's full-year earnings has moved 12.84% higher. This signals that analyst sentiment is improving and the stock's earnings outlook is more positive.

Our latest available data shows that RCII has returned about 56.39% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, the Consumer Discretionary sector has returned an average of 18.88% on a year-to-date basis. As we can see, Rent-A-Center is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

Breaking things down more, RCII is a member of the Consumer Services - Miscellaneous industry, which includes 10 individual companies and currently sits at #56 in the Zacks Industry Rank. This group has gained an average of 7.22% so far this year, so RCII is performing better in this area.

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

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