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Is American Equity Investment (AEL) Outperforming Other Finance Stocks This Year?

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Investors interested in Finance stocks should always be looking to find the best-performing companies in the group. Has American Equity Investment been one of those stocks this year? A quick glance at the company's year-to-date performance in comparison to the rest of the Finance sector should help us answer this question.

American Equity Investment is one of 902 individual stocks in the Finance sector. Collectively, these companies sit at #1 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. American Equity Investment is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for AEL's full-year earnings has moved 22.2% higher. This means that analyst sentiment is stronger and the stock's earnings outlook is improving.

Our latest available data shows that AEL has returned about 30.6% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, stocks in the Finance group have gained about 20.5% on average. This means that American Equity Investment is outperforming the sector as a whole this year.

BlackRock (BLK - Free Report) is another Finance stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year. Since the beginning of the year, the stock has returned 27.2%.

For BlackRock, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 1.8% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Looking more specifically, American Equity Investment belongs to the Insurance - Life Insurance industry, a group that includes 13 individual stocks and currently sits at #109 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, stocks in this group have gained 3.1% this year, meaning that AEL is performing better in terms of year-to-date returns.

BlackRock, however, belongs to the Financial - Investment Management industry. Currently, this 44-stock industry is ranked #56. The industry has moved +17.1% so far this year.

Going forward, investors interested in Finance stocks should continue to pay close attention to American Equity Investment and BlackRock as they could maintain their solid performance.


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