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Has Costco Wholesale (COST) Outpaced Other Retail-Wholesale Stocks This Year?

For those looking to find strong Retail-Wholesale stocks, it is prudent to search for companies in the group that are outperforming their peers. Has Costco Wholesale (COST) 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 Retail-Wholesale sector should help us answer this question.

Costco Wholesale is one of 212 individual stocks in the Retail-Wholesale sector. Collectively, these companies sit at #13 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. COST is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for COST's full-year earnings has moved 2.91% higher within the past quarter. This means that analyst sentiment is stronger and the stock's earnings outlook is improving.

Our latest available data shows that COST has returned about 3.81% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, stocks in the Retail-Wholesale group have lost about 9.23% on average. This means that Costco Wholesale is outperforming the sector as a whole this year.

To break things down more, COST belongs to the Retail - Discount Stores industry, a group that includes 9 individual companies and currently sits at #156 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have lost about 11.36% so far this year, so COST is performing better this group in terms of year-to-date returns.

Investors in the Retail-Wholesale sector will want to keep a close eye on COST as it attempts to continue its solid performance.

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