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Is Fastenal (FAST) Outperforming 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. Is Fastenal (FAST - Free Report) one of those stocks right now? 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 #8 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 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. Fastenal is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Within the past quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for FAST's full-year earnings has moved 1% higher. This means that analyst sentiment is stronger and the stock's earnings outlook is improving.

According to our latest data, FAST has moved about 7.2% on a year-to-date basis. Meanwhile, stocks in the Retail-Wholesale group have gained about 3.9% on average. This shows that Fastenal is outperforming its peers so far this year.

One other Retail-Wholesale stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year is MercadoLibre (MELI - Free Report) . The stock is up 12.9% year-to-date.

The consensus estimate for MercadoLibre's current year EPS has increased 8.6% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

To break things down more, Fastenal belongs to the Building Products - Retail industry, a group that includes 8 individual companies and currently sits at #167 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, this group has gained an average of 2% so far this year, meaning that FAST is performing better in terms of year-to-date returns.

On the other hand, MercadoLibre belongs to the Internet - Commerce industry. This 40-stock industry is currently ranked #70. The industry has moved +6.1% year to date.

Investors interested in the Retail-Wholesale sector may want to keep a close eye on Fastenal and MercadoLibre as they attempt to continue their solid performance.


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