Investors focused on the Consumer Discretionary space have likely heard of Rent-A-Center , but is the stock performing well in comparison to the rest of its sector peers? Let's take a closer look at the stock's year-to-date performance to find out.

Rent-A-Center is a member of our Consumer Discretionary group, which includes 244 different companies and currently sits at #6 in the Zacks Sector Rank. 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 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. RCII is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

Within the past quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for RCII's full-year earnings has moved 20.06% higher. This shows that analyst sentiment has improved and the company's earnings outlook is stronger.

Our latest available data shows that RCII has returned about 43.98% since the start of the calendar year. In comparison, Consumer Discretionary companies have returned an average of 16.58%. As we can see, Rent-A-Center is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

Looking more specifically, RCII belongs to the Consumer Services - Miscellaneous industry, which includes 10 individual stocks and currently sits at #27 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, stocks in this group have gained 5.96% this year, meaning that RCII is performing better in terms of year-to-date returns.

Investors in the Consumer Discretionary sector will want to keep a close eye on RCII as it attempts to continue its solid performance.