Don't 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 stunned expressions can be a good thing. It usually means that 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 prognosticators over the past few trading days.

We can start with Charles Schwab (Nasdaq: SCHW). The leading discount broker posted a quarterly profit of $0.10 a share, well short of the $0.17 a share it delivered a year ago but better than the $0.09 a share that analysts were targeting.

Despite a 24% decline in trading revenue, other channels helped the discounter deliver its first year-over-year top-line gain in more than two years. This bodes well for smaller rivals E*TRADE (Nasdaq: ETFC) and TD AMERITRADE (Nasdaq: AMTD), which will step up to the earnings stage in the coming days.

AMD (NYSE: AMD) is another market beater. The microprocessor thorn in Intel's (Nasdaq: INTC) side earned an adjusted quarterly profit of $0.15 a share. Investors were confident that AMD would reverse a year-ago loss, but Wall Street was only betting on net income of $0.06 a share out of AMD.

AMD and Intel warning about weakness in the consumer market may have kept gains in check, but it's good to see AMD back in a big way. It's the chip maker's fourth consecutive quarterly profit after going through three years of red ink.

Finally, we have Bank of the Ozarks (Nasdaq: OZRK) banking on blowing past the pros. The regional banker earned $1.19 a share in its latest quarter, trouncing expectations for net income to clock in at a mere $0.62 a share. Investors may have seen this one coming, since Bank of the Ozarks had increased its dividend rate earlier this month.  

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 that we look for in the Rule Breakers newsletter service. Want in? Check out a 30-day trial subscription.

Either way, come back next Monday to learn about more stocks that blew the market away.