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Is WellCare Health Plans (WCG) Stock Outpacing Its Medical Peers This Year?

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Investors interested in Medical stocks should always be looking to find the best-performing companies in the group. WellCare Health Plans is a stock that can certainly grab the attention of many investors, but do its recent returns compare favorably to the sector as a whole? One simple way to answer this question is to take a look at the year-to-date performance of WCG and the rest of the Medical group's stocks.

WellCare Health Plans is a member of our Medical group, which includes 908 different companies and currently sits at #2 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 system that emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions, highlighting a variety of stocks that are displaying the right characteristics to beat the market over the next one to three months. WCG is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for WCG's full-year earnings has moved 3.21% higher. This means that analyst sentiment is stronger and the stock's earnings outlook is improving.

Our latest available data shows that WCG has returned about 0.32% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, stocks in the Medical group have lost about 0.11% on average. As we can see, WellCare Health Plans is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

Breaking things down more, WCG is a member of the Medical - HMOs industry, which includes 11 individual companies and currently sits at #171 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have lost about 0.43% so far this year, so WCG is performing better this group in terms of year-to-date returns.

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

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