Is Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN) Stock Outpacing Its Medical Peers This Year?

Zacks Equity Research
Updated
Best Buy (BBY) has an impressive earnings surprise history and currently possesses the right combination of the two key ingredients for a likely beat in its next quarterly report.

Investors interested in Medical stocks should always be looking to find the best-performing companies in the group. Has Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN) been one of those stocks this year? Let's take a closer look at the stock's year-to-date performance to find out.

Alexion Pharmaceuticals is one of 845 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 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. ALXN is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

Over the past 90 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for ALXN's full-year earnings has moved 5.69% higher. This means that analyst sentiment is stronger and the stock's earnings outlook is improving.

Based on the most recent data, ALXN has returned 3.03% so far this year. Meanwhile, the Medical sector has returned an average of 2.32% on a year-to-date basis. As we can see, Alexion Pharmaceuticals is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

Breaking things down more, ALXN is a member of the Medical - Biomedical and Genetics industry, which includes 341 individual companies and currently sits at #82 in the Zacks Industry Rank. This group has lost an average of 13.49% so far this year, so ALXN is performing better in this area.

ALXN will likely be looking to continue its solid performance, so investors interested in Medical stocks should continue to pay close attention to the company.


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