It's an interesting time for consumer-staples stocks, Fools. Certain sector names have now outperformed the market year to date -- J.M. Smucker (NYSE: SJM), for instance -- while laggards such as Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) have badly trailed the rally andlost money for investors on an absolute basis.

With that in mind, let's review the sector's recent performance, to see whether further gains are the stuff of Kool-Aid dreams or PB&J reality.

No-brainer buys long gone, but ...
Looking back to the March lows, the depth of the market's fear was perhaps most clearly seen in the stocks of historically stable packaged-foods producers such as Kraft (NYSE: KFT) and ConAgra (NYSE: CAG). The price-to-sales ratioon these names dipped beneath 0.75, to multiyear lows, reflecting expectations of widespread deflation and a new consumer preference for bread-and-water victuals.

For now, the days of extreme fear and remarkable buys are a thing of the past, but as the table below indicates, consumer-staples valuations appear far from stretched.

Company

YTD % Change

52-week % Change

Forward P/E

5-year Average P/E

ConAgra

31.5

20.6

12.0

16.2

J.M. Smucker

25.3

17.7

13.4

17.5

Energizer

22.0

12.1

11.1

16.2

Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL)

15.6

26.6

16.6

22.8

Clorox

4.7

0.6

12.6

16.0

Kraft

0.7

(1.7)

12.7

18.9

Procter & Gamble

(7.1)

(7.0) Continued...