Is Agri Bank China (ACGBY) Stock Outpacing Its Finance Peers This Year?

Investors interested in Finance stocks should always be looking to find the best-performing companies in the group. Has Agri Bank China (ACGBY) been one of those stocks this year? By taking a look at the stock's year-to-date performance in comparison to its Finance peers, we might be able to answer that question.

Agri Bank China is a member of our Finance group, which includes 875 different companies and currently sits at #4 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. Agri Bank China is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for ACGBY's full-year earnings has moved 6% 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 ACGBY has returned about 7.4% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, stocks in the Finance group have gained about 7.2% on average. As we can see, Agri Bank China is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

Another Finance stock, which has outperformed the sector so far this year, is Assurant (AIZ). The stock has returned 15.6% year-to-date.

In Assurant's case, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year increased 3.4% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Breaking things down more, Agri Bank China is a member of the Banks - Foreign industry, which includes 85 individual companies and currently sits at #75 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have gained about 15.7% so far this year, so ACGBY is slightly underperforming its industry this group in terms of year-to-date returns.

In contrast, Assurant falls under the Insurance - Multi line industry. Currently, this industry has 46 stocks and is ranked #93. Since the beginning of the year, the industry has moved +3.9%.

Agri Bank China and Assurant could continue their solid performance, so investors interested in Finance stocks should continue to pay close attention to these stocks.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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