For those looking to find strong Basic Materials stocks, it is prudent to search for companies in the group that are outperforming their peers. Is Intrepid Potash (IPI) one of those stocks right now? A quick glance at the company's year-to-date performance in comparison to the rest of the Basic Materials sector should help us answer this question.

Intrepid Potash is one of 232 companies in the Basic Materials group. The Basic Materials group currently sits at #14 within the Zacks Sector Rank. The Zacks Sector Rank gauges the strength of our 16 individual sector groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups.

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. Intrepid Potash is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for IPI's full-year earnings has moved 64.4% higher. This means that analyst sentiment is stronger and the stock's earnings outlook is improving.

Our latest available data shows that IPI has returned about 20.7% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, the Basic Materials sector has returned an average of 9% on a year-to-date basis. This means that Intrepid Potash is outperforming the sector as a whole this year.

Another Basic Materials stock, which has outperformed the sector so far this year, is US Gold Corp (USAU). The stock has returned 37.5% year-to-date.

For US Gold Corp, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 9.9% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Looking more specifically, Intrepid Potash belongs to the Fertilizers industry, a group that includes 8 individual stocks and currently sits at #53 in the Zacks Industry Rank. This group has gained an average of 6.9% so far this year, so IPI is performing better in this area.

US Gold Corp, however, belongs to the Mining - Gold industry. Currently, this 41-stock industry is ranked #78. The industry has moved +22.1% so far this year.

Going forward, investors interested in Basic Materials stocks should continue to pay close attention to Intrepid Potash and US Gold Corp as they could maintain their solid performance.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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