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Is Costco Wholesale (COST) Stock Outpacing Its Retail-Wholesale Peers This Year?

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For those looking to find strong Retail-Wholesale stocks, it is prudent to search for companies in the group that are outperforming their peers. Has Costco Wholesale (COST - 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.

Costco Wholesale is one of 211 individual stocks in the Retail-Wholesale sector. Collectively, these companies sit at #1 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 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. COST is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Within the past quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for COST's full-year earnings has moved 5.17% higher. This shows that analyst sentiment has improved and the company's earnings outlook is stronger.

Based on the most recent data, COST has returned 9.45% so far this year. At the same time, Retail-Wholesale stocks have gained an average of 1.85%. This means that Costco Wholesale is outperforming the sector as a whole this year.

To break things down more, COST belongs to the Retail - Discount Stores industry, a group that includes 8 individual companies and currently sits at #21 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, this group has gained an average of 12.51% so far this year, meaning that COST is slightly underperforming its industry in terms of year-to-date returns.

Going forward, investors interested in Retail-Wholesale stocks should continue to pay close attention to COST as it looks to continue its solid performance.


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