3 Stocks That Blew the Market Away

Don't settle for ordinary quarterly reports.

I take a look at three companies that beat market expectations every week, since I believe that's the biggest factor in whether a stock beats the market. Leaving Wall Street's pros with stunned expressions can be a good thing. It usually means the companies have more in the tank than analysts figured. Capital appreciation typically follows.

Let's take a look at a few companies that humbled the pros over the past few trading days.

We can start with salesforce.com (NYS: CRM) . The poster child for enterprise cloud computing posted an adjusted quarterly profit of $0.37 a share to close out the week higher. Most of its peers tanked in a week that saw the Nasdaq Composite surrender 5.3% of its value. Analysts were only banking on a profit of $0.34 a share.

Netlist (NAS: NLST) was another tech stock that bucked the trend to gain ground last week. The maker of memory subsystems for server and storage applications posted a narrower loss than Wall Street was expecting.

Netlist's deficit of $0.02 a share -- while still a loss -- was better than the $0.05 per share in red ink the pros were targeting. Pair that up with a 16% spike in revenue, and Netlist closed out last week with a 5% gain.

Finally, we have Foot Locker (NYS: FL) outrunning the prognosticators. The athletic-footwear retailer turned a surprising 9.7% spike in same-store sales into a quarterly profit of $0.83 a share, blowing past the $0.60 a share it earned last year and the $0.74 a share analysts were forecasting.

It was a good week for sporty retailers, as sporting goods specialists Hibbett Sports (NAS: HIBB) and Dick's Sporting Goods (NYS: DKS) also landed well ahead of Wall Street.

Moving in the right direction
It's important to keep watching the companies that surpass expectations. Over time, it will be a lucrative experience for investors as the market rewards the overachievers. That's the kind of surprise we look for in the Rule Breakers newsletter service. Want in? Try a 30-day trial subscription. If that's not up your alley just yet, you can still check out a free special report detailing the next trillion-dollar revolution.

In any case, come back next week to learn about more stocks that blew the market away.

If these three victors aren't enough, check out a new report that reveals three hidden winners in a booming niche that will only get bigger in the future. It's a free report, so check it out soon.

At the time thisarticle was published The Motley Fool owns shares of salesforce.com and Dick's Sporting Goods.Motley Fool newsletter serviceshave recommended buying shares of salesforce.com.Motley Fool newsletter serviceshave recommended creating a bear put spread position in salesforce.com. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe thatconsidering a diverse range of insightsmakes us better investors. Try any of our Foolish newsletter servicesfree for 30 days.Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz calls them as he sees them. He does not own shares in any of the stocks in this story. Rick is also part of theRule Breakersnewsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.

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