For those looking to find strong Basic Materials stocks, it is prudent to search for companies in the group that are outperforming their peers. Has Alamos Gold (AGI) been one of those stocks this year? 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.

Alamos Gold is one of 232 individual stocks in the Basic Materials sector. Collectively, these companies sit at #15 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 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. Alamos Gold is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for AGI's full-year earnings has moved 15% higher within the past quarter. This signals that analyst sentiment is improving and the stock's earnings outlook is more positive.

According to our latest data, AGI has moved about 25.4% on a year-to-date basis. In comparison, Basic Materials companies have returned an average of 6.8%. This means that Alamos Gold is performing better than its sector in terms of year-to-date returns.

Another Basic Materials stock, which has outperformed the sector so far this year, is DRDGOLD (DRD). The stock has returned 31.8% year-to-date.

For DRDGOLD, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 41.3% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

Breaking things down more, Alamos Gold is a member of the Mining - Gold industry, which includes 40 individual companies and currently sits at #51 in the Zacks Industry Rank. This group has gained an average of 19.9% so far this year, so AGI is performing better in this area. DRDGOLD is also part of the same industry.

Going forward, investors interested in Basic Materials stocks should continue to pay close attention to Alamos Gold and DRDGOLD 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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