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Is Costco Wholesale (COST) Stock Outpacing Its Retail-Wholesale Peers This Year?

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For those looking to find strong Retail-Wholesale stocks, it is prudent to search for companies in the group that are outperforming their peers. Costco Wholesale (COST - Free Report) is a stock that can certainly grab the attention of many investors, but do its recent returns compare favorably to the sector as a whole? One simple way to answer this question is to take a look at the year-to-date performance of COST and the rest of the Retail-Wholesale group's stocks.

Costco Wholesale is one of 224 individual stocks in the Retail-Wholesale sector. Collectively, these companies sit at #5 in 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 model that highlights a variety of stocks with the right characteristics to outperform the market over the next one to three months. The system emphasizes earnings estimate revisions and favors companies with improving earnings outlooks. COST is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Over the past 90 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for COST's full-year earnings has moved 1.59% higher. This means that analyst sentiment is stronger and the stock's earnings outlook is improving.

According to our latest data, COST has moved about 29.80% on a year-to-date basis. At the same time, Retail-Wholesale stocks have gained an average of 17.16%. As we can see, Costco Wholesale is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

Breaking things down more, COST is a member of the Retail - Discount Stores industry, which includes 10 individual companies and currently sits at #45 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, stocks in this group have gained 25.25% this year, meaning that COST is performing better in terms of year-to-date returns.

COST will likely be looking to continue its solid performance, so investors interested in Retail-Wholesale stocks should continue to pay close attention to the company.


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