Investors focused on the Basic Materials space have likely heard of Royal Gold (RGLD), but is the stock performing well in comparison to the rest of its sector peers? One simple way to answer this question is to take a look at the year-to-date performance of RGLD and the rest of the Basic Materials group's stocks.Royal Gold is one of 236 companies in the Basic Materials group. The Basic Materials 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 successful stock-picking model that emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions. The system highlights a number of different stocks that could be poised to outperform the broader market over the next one to three months. RGLD is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).Within the past quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for RGLD's full-year earnings has moved 5.26% higher. This is a sign of improving analyst sentiment and a positive earnings outlook trend.Based on the most recent data, RGLD has returned 8.73% so far this year. Meanwhile, the Basic Materials sector has returned an average of 1.70% on a year-to-date basis. This means that Royal Gold is outperforming the sector as a whole this year.Looking more specifically, RGLD belongs to the Mining - Gold industry, which includes 31 individual stocks and currently sits at #63 in the Zacks Industry Rank. Stocks in this group have gained about 41.79% so far this year, so RGLD is slightly underperforming its industry this group in terms of year-to-date returns.RGLD will likely be looking to continue its solid performance, so investors interested in Basic Materials stocks should continue to pay close attention to the company.Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Royal Gold, Inc. (RGLD): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research