The restaurant stocks, on the whole a losing proposition for most of the year, are very much back.

Although the first three-quarters of 2014 suggested the half-decade rally for the group was ending, a powerful reversal in the last few weeks has made that idea a distant memory. In early October, we wrote this: "Without an astonishing turnaround between now and Dec. 31, a five-year run of wins is about to be over for the restaurant stocks." That astonishing turnaround indeed has happened.

By doing so, it provides further evidence that: First, the business press, as often is already said, has a tremendous ability to state precisely the opposite of what is about to happen in the market. Two, it's futile to offer forward-looking projections based on securities whose prices change multiple times daily. Three, past performance is no guarantee of future results, as so many mutual fund documents smartly declare.

With the full awareness that this acknowledgement of a rebound in restaurants might now mark the end of their upturn, here's a summary of what's happened since our last check on the group. As of Oct. 1, 42 restaurant stocks surveyed by Yahoo Finance were down 4.8% this year. That's now completely overwritten, with the same group (not including Einstein Noah, which has been acquired) now up 4.7% for the year to date. At four prior points -- the end of the first quarter, the end of the second quarter, the midpoint of the second quarter and the end of the third quarter -- the group was down.

Our August review, when the stocks had a loss of almost 7% for the year, appears in hindsight to have coincided with a key period in the shift. Since then, the average three-month change for the group, from mid-August to mid-November, is a climb of 11.7%, far beyond the market's 4.3% increase.

By the start of October, we noted the restaurants had clearly improved from August, but they were still down almost 5% on the year, meaning they would need to gather significant momentum, and fast, to go positive. They did. When October arrived, only 12 of the 42 restaurant stocks surveyed were up for the year. That's now doubled, with 23 of the remaining 41 having an increase (again, without Einstein Noah). In only the past month, the average gain for a restaurant stock is 8.9%. The S&P is ahead by 8.1% in the same span.

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A few developments have contributed to this trend, outside the upward pull of the market. To start, restaurant companies' earnings for the most recent quarter generally were upbeat. Among the top 20 restaurants measured by market cap, 17 have reported their numbers, and their year-over-year earnings per share growth of 13.7% was better than Wall Street had projected. Meanwhile, revenue growth of 6.2% was the best of the three quarters reported so far. Seasonal factors do apply from quarter to quarter, but it's still a win.

Additionally, consumer spending has been favorable, and even more of that might be ahead. Retail sales were up 0.3% in October, while consumer sentiment has now risen to its best level since 2007, benefiting in part from a drop in gas prices. Reflecting this, consumer discretionary stocks, measured by the Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLY), have climbed 9.7% in the last month. As of mid-October, the ETF had been down 4.5% for the year, but now it has a gain.

Sales and traffic to restaurants specifically are going in the right direction. As detailed in a survey in Nation's Restaurant News, October's same-store sales and visitor counts are providing reasons for hope. The outlook for 2015 seems fairly bright, too, provided gas prices remain manageable for American diners and most commodity costs are tolerable for restaurant operators.

Then there's the factor of picking up the market's losers. Investors searching for downtrodden names this year certainly could find them among the restaurants. From 2009 through 2013, the restaurants rose, so the deflation in the group's stock prices this year didn't seem unreasonable, especially considering such issues as the elevation in price-to-earnings ratios, ongoing traffic sluggishness and worries about labor costs. And yet, those downward months only helped set the stage for buyers to bid the group back up.

Now we only have to see if the next month and a half undoes all this.