The Medical group has plenty of great stocks, but investors should always be looking for companies that are outperforming their peers. Has IDEXX Laboratories (IDXX Quick QuoteIDXX - Free Report) been one of those stocks this year? Let's take a closer look at the stock's year-to-date performance to find out.

IDEXX Laboratories is a member of our Medical group, which includes 935 different companies and currently sits 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 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. IDXX is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for IDXX's full-year earnings has moved 15.44% higher within the past quarter. This signals that analyst sentiment is improving and the stock's earnings outlook is more positive.

According to our latest data, IDXX has moved about 50.54% on a year-to-date basis. At the same time, Medical stocks have gained an average of 1.27%. This shows that IDEXX Laboratories is outperforming its peers so far this year.

To break things down more, IDXX belongs to the Medical - Instruments industry, a group that includes 95 individual companies and currently sits at #171 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have gained about 17.83% so far this year, so IDXX is performing better this group in terms of year-to-date returns.

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