The Basic Materials group has plenty of great stocks, but investors should always be looking for companies that are outperforming their peers. Has Arconic been one of those stocks this year? Let's take a closer look at the stock's year-to-date performance to find out.

Arconic is a member of our Basic Materials group, which includes 247 different companies and currently sits at #14 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 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. ARNC is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for ARNC's full-year earnings has moved 4.58% higher. This shows that analyst sentiment has improved and the company's earnings outlook is stronger.

Based on the most recent data, ARNC has returned 85.23% so far this year. At the same time, Basic Materials stocks have gained an average of 12.46%. As we can see, Arconic is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

To break things down more, ARNC belongs to the Mining - Non Ferrous industry, a group that includes 11 individual companies and currently sits at #58 in the Zacks Industry Rank. This group has gained an average of 36.36% so far this year, so ARNC is performing better in this area.

Going forward, investors interested in Basic Materials stocks should continue to pay close attention to ARNC as it looks to continue its solid performance.