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Has Ruth's Hospitality Group (RUTH) Outpaced Other Retail-Wholesale Stocks 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. Ruth's Hospitality 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? Let's take a closer look at the stock's year-to-date performance to find out.

Ruth's Hospitality is one of 221 individual stocks in the Retail-Wholesale sector. Collectively, these companies sit at #7 in 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 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. Ruth's Hospitality is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for RUTH's full-year earnings has moved 6.5% higher within the past quarter. This is a sign of improving analyst sentiment and a positive earnings outlook trend.

Our latest available data shows that RUTH has returned about 7.4% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, stocks in the Retail-Wholesale group have gained about 7.3% on average. As we can see, Ruth's Hospitality is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

One other Retail-Wholesale stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year is Ulta Beauty (ULTA - Free Report) . The stock is up 15.6% year-to-date.

In Ulta Beauty's case, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year increased 4.3% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Breaking things down more, Ruth's Hospitality is a member of the Retail - Restaurants industry, which includes 40 individual companies and currently sits at #65 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have gained about 11.5% so far this year, so RUTH is slightly underperforming its industry this group in terms of year-to-date returns.

In contrast, Ulta Beauty falls under the Retail - Miscellaneous industry. Currently, this industry has 21 stocks and is ranked #153. Since the beginning of the year, the industry has moved -6.1%.

Ruth's Hospitality and Ulta Beauty could continue their solid performance, so investors interested in Retail-Wholesale stocks should continue to pay close attention to these stocks.


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