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Is Central Garden & Pet (CENTA) Outperforming Other Consumer Discretionary Stocks This Year?

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For those looking to find strong Consumer Discretionary stocks, it is prudent to search for companies in the group that are outperforming their peers. Is Central Garden (CENTA - 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.

Central Garden is one of 292 companies in the Consumer Discretionary group. The Consumer Discretionary group currently sits at #14 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 proven system that emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions, highlighting a variety of stocks that are displaying the right characteristics to beat the market over the next one to three months. Central Garden is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

Over the past 90 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for CENTA's full-year earnings has moved 12.9% higher. This signals that analyst sentiment is improving and the stock's earnings outlook is more positive.

According to our latest data, CENTA has moved about 4.8% on a year-to-date basis. At the same time, Consumer Discretionary stocks have gained an average of 3.6%. This means that Central Garden is performing better than its sector in terms of year-to-date returns.

Another Consumer Discretionary stock, which has outperformed the sector so far this year, is Cimpress (CMPR - Free Report) . The stock has returned 10.6% year-to-date.

For Cimpress, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 11.4% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

Looking more specifically, Central Garden belongs to the Consumer Products - Discretionary industry, a group that includes 25 individual stocks and currently sits at #67 in the Zacks Industry Rank. This group has gained an average of 6.7% so far this year, so CENTA is slightly underperforming its industry in this area.

In contrast, Cimpress falls under the Consumer Services - Miscellaneous industry. Currently, this industry has 14 stocks and is ranked #146. Since the beginning of the year, the industry has moved +6.7%.

Going forward, investors interested in Consumer Discretionary stocks should continue to pay close attention to Central Garden and Cimpress as they could maintain their solid performance.


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