For those looking to find strong Basic Materials stocks, it is prudent to search for companies in the group that are outperforming their peers. Has Yamana Gold been one of those stocks this year? A quick glance at the company's year-to-date performance in comparison to the rest of the Basic Materials sector should help us answer this question.

Yamana Gold is a member of our Basic Materials group, which includes 246 different companies and currently sits at #15 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 successful stock-picking model that emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions. The system highlights a number of different stocks that could be poised to outperform the broader market over the next one to three months. AUY is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

Over the past 90 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for AUY's full-year earnings has moved 80.77% higher. This is a sign of improving analyst sentiment and a positive earnings outlook trend.

According to our latest data, AUY has moved about 45.34% on a year-to-date basis. In comparison, Basic Materials companies have returned an average of 10%. As we can see, Yamana Gold is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

Looking more specifically, AUY belongs to the Mining - Gold industry, a group that includes 35 individual stocks and currently sits at #64 in the Zacks Industry Rank. This group has gained an average of 35.79% so far this year, so AUY is performing better in this area.

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