Investors focused on the Basic Materials space have likely heard of Harmony Gold Mining Company (HMY), but is the stock performing well in comparison to the rest of its sector peers? Let’s take a closer look at the stock’s year-to-date performance to find out.

Harmony Gold Mining Company is one of 236 individual stocks in the Basic Materials sector. Collectively, these companies sit at #3 in 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 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. HMY is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for HMY’s full-year earnings has moved 22.89% higher. This signals that analyst sentiment is improving and the stock’s earnings outlook is more positive.

Based on the most recent data, HMY has returned 66.39% so far this year. At the same time, Basic Materials stocks have lost an average of 1.82%. As we can see, Harmony Gold Mining Company is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

Looking more specifically, HMY belongs to the Mining – Gold industry, which includes 31 individual stocks and currently sits at #89 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have gained about 35.68% so far this year, so HMY is performing better this group in terms of year-to-date returns.

Going forward, investors interested in Basic Materials stocks should continue to pay close attention to HMY as it looks to continue its solid performance.

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