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Is Aflac (AFL) Stock Outpacing Its Finance Peers This Year?

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Investors interested in Finance stocks should always be looking to find the best-performing companies in the group. Has Aflac (AFL - 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.

Aflac is a member of our Finance group, which includes 856 different companies and currently sits at #12 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 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. AFL is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for AFL's full-year earnings has moved 1.04% higher. This signals that analyst sentiment is improving and the stock's earnings outlook is more positive.

Our latest available data shows that AFL has returned about 16.24% since the start of the calendar year. In comparison, Finance companies have returned an average of 13.44%. This means that Aflac is performing better than its sector in terms of year-to-date returns.

Looking more specifically, AFL belongs to the Insurance - Accident and Health industry, a group that includes 5 individual stocks and currently sits at #98 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have gained about 16.33% so far this year, so AFL is slightly underperforming its industry this group in terms of year-to-date returns.

Going forward, investors interested in Finance stocks should continue to pay close attention to AFL as it looks to continue its solid performance.


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