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Is Fastenal (FAST) Stock Outpacing Its Retail-Wholesale Peers This Year?

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The Retail-Wholesale group has plenty of great stocks, but investors should always be looking for companies that are outperforming their peers. Has Fastenal (FAST - 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.

Fastenal is a member of our Retail-Wholesale group, which includes 218 different companies and currently sits at #7 in the Zacks Sector Rank. The Zacks Sector Rank gauges the strength of our 16 individual sector groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups.

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. Fastenal is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for FAST's full-year earnings has moved 2.2% higher within the past quarter. This means that analyst sentiment is stronger and the stock's earnings outlook is improving.

Our latest available data shows that FAST has returned about 21.8% since the start of the calendar year. In comparison, Retail-Wholesale companies have returned an average of 12.3%. As we can see, Fastenal 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 Hennes & Mauritz AB (HNNMY - Free Report) . The stock is up 34.3% year-to-date.

In Hennes & Mauritz AB's case, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year increased 10.7% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

Looking more specifically, Fastenal belongs to the Building Products - Retail industry, a group that includes 8 individual stocks and currently sits at #22 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, this group has gained an average of 4.2% so far this year, meaning that FAST is performing better in terms of year-to-date returns.

Hennes & Mauritz AB, however, belongs to the Retail - Apparel and Shoes industry. Currently, this 44-stock industry is ranked #191. The industry has moved -5.5% so far this year.

Fastenal and Hennes & Mauritz AB 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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