Yahoo Finance Are Basic Materials Stocks Lagging DRDGOLD Limited (DRD) This Year?
The Basic Materials group has plenty of great stocks, but investors should always be looking for companies that are outperforming their peers. Has DRDGOLD (DRD) 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.
DRDGOLD is one of 240 companies in the Basic Materials group. The Basic Materials group currently sits at #8 within the Zacks Sector Rank. The Zacks Sector Rank includes 16 different groups and is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors.
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. DRDGOLD is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).
Over the past 90 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for DRD's full-year earnings has moved 6.4% higher. This shows that analyst sentiment has improved and the company's earnings outlook is stronger.
Our latest available data shows that DRD has returned about 6.3% since the start of the calendar year. At the same time, Basic Materials stocks have lost an average of 1.7%. This means that DRDGOLD is performing better than its sector in terms of year-to-date returns.
Another stock in the Basic Materials sector, Linde (LIN), has outperformed the sector so far this year. The stock's year-to-date return is 8.9%.
Over the past three months, Linde's consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 0.2%. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
Looking more specifically, DRDGOLD belongs to the Mining - Gold industry, a group that includes 39 individual stocks and currently sits at #97 in the Zacks Industry Rank. This group has gained an average of 10.4% so far this year, so DRD is slightly underperforming its industry in this area.
On the other hand, Linde belongs to the Chemical - Specialty industry. This 33-stock industry is currently ranked #72. The industry has moved -19.6% year to date.
Going forward, investors interested in Basic Materials stocks should continue to pay close attention to DRDGOLD and Linde as they could maintain their solid performance.
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