Why settle for ordinary quarterly reports?
I take a look at three companies that beat market
expectations every week, since I believe that it's the
biggest factor in a stock beating the market. Leaving Wall
Street's pros with puzzled looks on their faces can be a good
thing. It usually means that the companies have more in the
tank than analysts figured. Capital appreciation often
follows.
Let's take a look at a few companies that humbled the
prognosticators over the past few trading days.
We can start with
Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN). Shares of the
world's leading online retailer soared 27% on Friday, after
the e-tailer obliterated Wall Street predictions. The pros
expected third-quarter earnings to rise 22%. Instead,
Amazon.com's net income catapulted 68% higher, to
$0.45 a share.
T. Rowe Price (Nasdaq: TROW) also made out
nicely. The mutual fund giant posted a profit of $0.50 a
share, comfortably ahead of analyst estimates of $0.46 a
share. It's true that T. Rowe Price earned more a year ago,
but the fund operator feels that the worst is behind it; it
grew its asset base nicely during the quarter's rally. T.
Rowe's showing was a welcome surprise after rival
Janus Capital Group (NYSE: JNS) simply met
expectations a day earlier.
Finally, we have
Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) checking in higher. The
company's quarterly profit of $0.13 a share -- or
$0.15 a shareon a non-GAAP basis -- blew past Mr.
Market's best guess of $0.07 a share. The online advertising
market may not be hitting on all cylinders, but it bears
pointing out that its three largest players --
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Yahoo!, and
Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) -- all surpassed
Wall Street's bottom-line projections.
So keep watching the companies that surpass expectations.
Over time, it will be a profitable experience for investors,
as the market rewards the overachievers. That's the kind of
surprise we look for in the
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Either way, come back next Monday to learn about more
stocks that blew the market away.
This article was originally published as
3 Stocks That Blew the Market Awayon
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