The Industrial Products group has plenty of great stocks, but investors should always be looking for companies that are outperforming their peers. Is UniFirst (UNF) one of those stocks right now? Let's take a closer look at the stock's year-to-date performance to find out.

UniFirst is a member of our Industrial Products group, which includes 190 different companies and currently sits 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 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. UniFirst is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for UNF's full-year earnings has moved 4.1% higher. This signals that analyst sentiment is improving and the stock's earnings outlook is more positive.

According to our latest data, UNF has moved about 7.3% on a year-to-date basis. Meanwhile, stocks in the Industrial Products group have lost about 5.5% on average. This means that UniFirst is outperforming the sector as a whole this year.

Wartsila (WRTBY) is another Industrial Products stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year. Since the beginning of the year, the stock has returned 9.8%.

The consensus estimate for Wartsila's current year EPS has increased 5.6% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Looking more specifically, UniFirst belongs to the Uniform and Related industry, a group that includes 2 individual stocks and currently sits at #20 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have lost about 18.4% so far this year, so UNF is performing better this group in terms of year-to-date returns.

On the other hand, Wartsila belongs to the Manufacturing - Electronics industry. This 17-stock industry is currently ranked #87. The industry has moved -9.6% year to date.

UniFirst and Wartsila could continue their solid performance, so investors interested in Industrial Products 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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