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Is Citigroup (C) Stock Outpacing Its Finance Peers This Year?

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The Finance group has plenty of great stocks, but investors should always be looking for companies that are outperforming their peers. Has Citigroup (C - 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.

Citigroup is a member of our Finance group, which includes 832 different companies and currently sits at #7 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 emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions to find stocks with improving earnings outlooks. This system has a long record of success, and these stocks tend to be on track to beat the market over the next one to three months. Citigroup is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for C's full-year earnings has moved 4.5% higher. This means that analyst sentiment is stronger and the stock's earnings outlook is improving.

Our latest available data shows that C has returned about 7.5% since the start of the calendar year. At the same time, Finance stocks have gained an average of 0.8%. This means that Citigroup is outperforming the sector as a whole this year.

BGC Group (BGC - Free Report) is another Finance stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year. Since the beginning of the year, the stock has returned 18%.

In BGC Group's case, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year increased 1.1% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Looking more specifically, Citigroup belongs to the Financial - Investment Bank industry, a group that includes 20 individual stocks and currently sits at #107 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, this group has lost an average of 3.4% so far this year, meaning that C is performing better in terms of year-to-date returns. BGC Group is also part of the same industry.

Going forward, investors interested in Finance stocks should continue to pay close attention to Citigroup and BGC Group as they could maintain their solid performance.

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