The  Electronics/Measuring Instruments industry is staying red hot in a flat market.  By late-April, this tech stock group was in the Top 5% (#14 out of 265) of industries Zacks ranks. We counted four upgrades in covering analyst earnings estimates and zero analyst downgrades.

Our research has shown that roughly half of a stock’s price movement can be attributed to the sector that stock falls in. In fact, the top 50% of Zacks ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.

This is an enduring top-down strategic idea for finding outperformance. Look at the collective performance of the Electronics/Measuring Instruments sector over the last year. As of April 25, 2018, the Electronics/Measuring Instruments 10-company industry group is up +9.9% over the previous three months vs. a drop of 5.5% in the S&P500. The group has outperformed the broader market over numerous time periods (see “Beating the market”).  

The Semiconductor Industry-related stocks have worked extremely well. This supplier niche, in that large tech hardware space, is no exception.

Here are the best three stocks in this group 

1. Advantest (ATEYY): This is a $3.8 billion market cap Zacks #1 Rank (STRONG BUY) stock. 

2. Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS): This is a large cap stock, with $10.3 billion in market capitalization. The Zacks #1 Rank (STRONG BUY) is the sole stock metric flashing attraction. 

3. InTEST Corp (INTT): This is a very small cap stock, with $74 million in market capitalization. The Zacks #2 Rank (BUY) is only one attraction to this little-known company.