The Retail-Wholesale group has plenty of great stocks, but investors should always be looking for companies that are outperforming their peers. Farmer Brothers (FARM) 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.

Farmer Brothers is one of 214 individual stocks in the Retail-Wholesale sector. Collectively, these companies sit at #7 in the Zacks Sector Rank. The Zacks Sector Rank includes 16 different groups and is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors.

The Zacks Rank is a proven model that highlights a variety of stocks with the right characteristics to outperform the market over the next one to three months. The system emphasizes earnings estimate revisions and favors companies with improving earnings outlooks. Farmer Brothers is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for FARM's full-year earnings has moved 40.3% higher. This is a sign of improving analyst sentiment and a positive earnings outlook trend.

Our latest available data shows that FARM has returned about 31.7% since the start of the calendar year. Meanwhile, the Retail-Wholesale sector has returned an average of -2.7% on a year-to-date basis. This shows that Farmer Brothers is outperforming its peers so far this year.

Another stock in the Retail-Wholesale sector, Nordstrom (JWN), has outperformed the sector so far this year. The stock's year-to-date return is 1.1%.

For Nordstrom, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 8.8% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

Looking more specifically, Farmer Brothers belongs to the Food - Natural Foods Products industry, a group that includes 6 individual stocks and currently sits at #45 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, stocks in this group have lost 3.4% this year, meaning that FARM is performing better in terms of year-to-date returns.

Nordstrom, however, belongs to the Retail - Apparel and Shoes industry. Currently, this 42-stock industry is ranked #59. The industry has moved -21.2% so far this year.

Farmer Brothers and Nordstrom could continue their solid performance, so investors interested in Retail-Wholesale stocks should continue to pay close attention to these stocks.

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

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