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Are Consumer Discretionary Stocks Lagging Stride (LRN) This Year?

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The Consumer Discretionary group has plenty of great stocks, but investors should always be looking for companies that are outperforming their peers. Is K12 (LRN - Free Report) one of those stocks right now? A quick glance at the company's year-to-date performance in comparison to the rest of the Consumer Discretionary sector should help us answer this question.

K12 is one of 281 companies in the Consumer Discretionary group. The Consumer Discretionary group currently sits at #12 within 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 successful stock-picking model that emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions. The system highlights a number of different stocks that could be poised to outperform the broader market over the next one to three months. K12 is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

Over the past 90 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for LRN's full-year earnings has moved 22.4% higher. This shows that analyst sentiment has improved and the company's earnings outlook is stronger.

Our latest available data shows that LRN has returned about 82.5% since the start of the calendar year. At the same time, Consumer Discretionary stocks have gained an average of 9.7%. This shows that K12 is outperforming its peers so far this year.

Another stock in the Consumer Discretionary sector, Royal Caribbean (RCL - Free Report) , has outperformed the sector so far this year. The stock's year-to-date return is 109.8%.

For Royal Caribbean, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 6.1% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

Breaking things down more, K12 is a member of the Schools industry, which includes 19 individual companies and currently sits at #13 in the Zacks Industry Rank. This group has gained an average of 30.4% so far this year, so LRN is performing better in this area.

In contrast, Royal Caribbean falls under the Leisure and Recreation Services industry. Currently, this industry has 35 stocks and is ranked #135. Since the beginning of the year, the industry has moved +14.3%.

K12 and Royal Caribbean could continue their solid performance, so investors interested in Consumer Discretionary stocks should continue to pay close attention to these stocks.


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