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Are Consumer Discretionary Stocks Lagging Alto Ingredients (ALTO) 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. Has Alto Ingredients (ALTO - 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.

Alto Ingredients is one of 246 companies in the Consumer Discretionary group. The Consumer Discretionary group currently sits at #3 within 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 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. Alto Ingredients is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

Within the past quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for ALTO's full-year earnings has moved 18.8% higher. This means that analyst sentiment is stronger and the stock's earnings outlook is improving.

Based on the latest available data, ALTO has gained about 84.4% so far this year. In comparison, Consumer Discretionary companies have returned an average of -5.4%. As we can see, Alto Ingredients is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

Another stock in the Consumer Discretionary sector, Central Garden (CENT - Free Report) , has outperformed the sector so far this year. The stock's year-to-date return is 18.3%.

In Central Garden's case, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year increased 2.7% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

To break things down more, Alto Ingredients belongs to the Consumer Products - Discretionary industry, a group that includes 25 individual companies and currently sits at #82 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, this group has gained an average of 3.9% so far this year, meaning that ALTO is performing better in terms of year-to-date returns. Central Garden is also part of the same industry.

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

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