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Is The Goldman Sachs Group (GS) 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. Is Goldman Sachs (GS - 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 Finance sector should help us answer this question.

Goldman Sachs is a member of the Finance sector. This group includes 874 individual stocks and currently holds a Zacks Sector Rank of #4. The Zacks Sector Rank gauges the strength of our 16 individual sector groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups.

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. Goldman Sachs is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for GS' full-year earnings has moved 16.6% higher. This shows that analyst sentiment has improved and the company's earnings outlook is stronger.

Our latest available data shows that GS has returned about 18.2% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, the Finance sector has returned an average of 7.2% on a year-to-date basis. This shows that Goldman Sachs is outperforming its peers so far this year.

Ameriprise Financial Services (AMP - 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 13.3%.

Over the past three months, Ameriprise Financial Services' consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 8.5%. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

To break things down more, Goldman Sachs belongs to the Financial - Investment Bank industry, a group that includes 22 individual companies and currently sits at #41 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have gained about 10.4% so far this year, so GS is performing better this group in terms of year-to-date returns.

In contrast, Ameriprise Financial Services falls under the Financial - Investment Management industry. Currently, this industry has 37 stocks and is ranked #61. Since the beginning of the year, the industry has moved -3.6%.

Going forward, investors interested in Finance stocks should continue to pay close attention to Goldman Sachs and Ameriprise Financial Services as they could maintain their solid performance.

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