Are Medical Stocks Lagging Guardant Health (GH) This Year?

The Medical group has plenty of great stocks, but investors should always be looking for companies that are outperforming their peers. Guardant Health (GH) 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? Let's take a closer look at the stock's year-to-date performance to find out.Guardant Health is one of 1013 companies in the Medical group. The Medical group currently sits at #3 within 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 emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions to find stocks with improving earnings outlooks. This system has a long record of success, and these stocks tend to be on track to beat the market over the next one to three months. Guardant Health is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).Within the past quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for GH's full-year earnings has moved 4.3% higher. This shows that analyst sentiment has improved and the company's earnings outlook is stronger.Our latest available data shows that GH has returned about 55.8% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, the Medical sector has returned an average of 7.1% on a year-to-date basis. As we can see, Guardant Health is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.Another stock in the Medical sector, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY), has outperformed the sector so far this year. The stock's year-to-date return is 17.4%.In Alnylam Pharmaceuticals' case, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year increased 10.8% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).Looking more specifically, Guardant Health belongs to the Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry, a group that includes 512 individual stocks and currently sits at #68 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have gained about 8% so far this year, so GH is performing better this group in terms of year-to-date returns. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals is also part of the same industry.Going forward, investors interested in Medical stocks should continue to pay close attention to Guardant Health and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals as they could maintain their solid performance.7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 DaysJust released: Experts distill 7 elite stocks from the current list of 220 Zacks Rank #1 Strong Buys. They deem these tickers "Most Likely for Early Price Pops."Since 1988, the full list has beaten the market more than 2X over with an average gain of +24.3% per year. So be sure to give these hand picked 7 your immediate attention. See them now >>Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Guardant Health, Inc. (GH): Free Stock Analysis Report Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ALNY): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Zacks Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Zacks