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Is Activision Blizzard (ATVI) Stock Outpacing Its Consumer Discretionary Peers This Year?

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Investors focused on the Consumer Discretionary space have likely heard of Activision Blizzard , but is the stock performing well in comparison to the rest of its sector peers? One simple way to answer this question is to take a look at the year-to-date performance of ATVI and the rest of the Consumer Discretionary group's stocks.

Activision Blizzard is one of 250 individual stocks in the Consumer Discretionary sector. Collectively, these companies sit at #13 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 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. ATVI is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for ATVI's full-year earnings has moved 1.15% higher. This is a sign of improving analyst sentiment and a positive earnings outlook trend.

Our latest available data shows that ATVI has returned about 3.03% since the start of the calendar year. In comparison, Consumer Discretionary companies have returned an average of 24.52%. This means that Activision Blizzard is outperforming the sector as a whole this year.

Looking more specifically, ATVI belongs to the Toys - Games - Hobbies industry, a group that includes 8 individual stocks and currently sits at #42 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, stocks in this group have gained 15.44% this year, meaning that ATVI is slightly underperforming its industry in terms of year-to-date returns.

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

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