Education Stocks Outperforming Today (DV, ESI, CECO, STRA, LINC)

As the markets trade flat to slightly down this morning in the wake of Alcoa's disappointing first-quarter results, education names are showing notable strength. Education stocks are counter-cyclical, meaning they tend to perform better as the economy weakens. This makes intuitive sense because as the economy weakens displaced workers often return to school to improve their skill-set to obtain future employment.

Credit Suisse is also upbeat on for-profit education stocks and upgraded DeVry (NYSE: DV) and ITT Educational (NYSE: ESI) this morning to Outperform from Neutral. They raised their price targets on DeVry and ITT to $75 and $135, respectively. Both stocks are up over 9% today.

Other education stocks are also sporting hefty gains today. Career Education Corp. (NASDAQ: CECO) is up nearly 5%, Strayer Education, Inc. (NASDAQ: STRA) is up 2.7%, and Lincoln Educational Services (NASDAQ: LINC) is up 1%.