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Is Athira Pharma (ATHA) Stock Outpacing Its Medical Peers This Year?

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The Medical group has plenty of great stocks, but investors should always be looking for companies that are outperforming their peers. Is Athira Pharma, Inc. (ATHA - Free Report) one of those stocks right now? A quick glance at the company's year-to-date performance in comparison to the rest of the Medical sector should help us answer this question.

Athira Pharma, Inc. is one of 1021 individual stocks in the Medical sector. Collectively, these companies sit at #4 in the Zacks Sector Rank. The Zacks Sector Rank considers 16 different groups, measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the sector to gauge the strength of each group.

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. Athira Pharma, Inc. is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Over the past 90 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for ATHA's full-year earnings has moved 10.3% higher. This shows that analyst sentiment has improved and the company's earnings outlook is stronger.

Based on the most recent data, ATHA has returned 29.6% so far this year. Meanwhile, the Medical sector has returned an average of 5.3% on a year-to-date basis. This means that Athira Pharma, Inc. is performing better than its sector in terms of year-to-date returns.

Another Medical stock, which has outperformed the sector so far this year, is HCA Healthcare (HCA - Free Report) . The stock has returned 30.4% year-to-date.

For HCA Healthcare, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 7.9% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

To break things down more, Athira Pharma, Inc. belongs to the Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry, a group that includes 499 individual companies and currently sits at #93 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have lost about 2.5% so far this year, so ATHA is performing better this group in terms of year-to-date returns.

In contrast, HCA Healthcare falls under the Medical - Hospital industry. Currently, this industry has 5 stocks and is ranked #3. Since the beginning of the year, the industry has moved +31.7%.

Going forward, investors interested in Medical stocks should continue to pay close attention to Athira Pharma, Inc. and HCA Healthcare as they could maintain their solid performance.


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