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Is Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (AJG) Stock Outpacing Its Finance Peers This Year?

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For those looking to find strong Finance stocks, it is prudent to search for companies in the group that are outperforming their peers. Is Arthur J. Gallagher (AJG - Free Report) one of those stocks right now? Let's take a closer look at the stock's year-to-date performance to find out.

Arthur J. Gallagher is a member of our Finance group, which includes 860 different companies and currently sits at #1 in the Zacks Sector Rank. The Zacks Sector Rank considers 16 different sector groups. The average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups is measured, and the sectors are listed from best to worst.

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. Arthur J. Gallagher is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for AJG's full-year earnings has moved 0.7% higher. This shows that analyst sentiment has improved and the company's earnings outlook is stronger.

Our latest available data shows that AJG has returned about 25.1% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, the Finance sector has returned an average of 10.5% on a year-to-date basis. As we can see, Arthur J. Gallagher is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

PROG Holdings (PRG - Free Report) is another Finance stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year. Since the beginning of the year, the stock has returned 32.8%.

For PROG Holdings, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 11.3% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

Breaking things down more, Arthur J. Gallagher is a member of the Insurance - Brokerage industry, which includes 9 individual companies and currently sits at #9 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have gained about 21.2% so far this year, so AJG is performing better this group in terms of year-to-date returns.

PROG Holdings, however, belongs to the Financial - Consumer Loans industry. Currently, this 17-stock industry is ranked #45. The industry has moved +6.7% so far this year.

Going forward, investors interested in Finance stocks should continue to pay close attention to Arthur J. Gallagher and PROG Holdings as they could maintain their solid performance.


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