Do you like to trade during earnings season? This past earnings season has been highly volatile, so how do you know which stocks are going to beat earnings? The short answer is that you can't truly know, but there are ways to increase the odds of choosing a winner.

One way is to look for high-growth companies that the smart money is buying. Read more to learn about these terms.

High EPS growth
Projected earnings per share is an educated guess about how much money a company can make in profits in the future. If analysts think that the EPS of a company will grow more than 20% over the next five years, it is considered a high-growth stock.

Institutional transactions
Institutional investors are also known as "big money" investors. They manage large pools of money such as mutual funds and hedge funds. When they invest in stocks, they can invest hundreds of thousands of dollars or more at one time. These transactions, called "block trades," can have a significant effect on share prices.

Because institutional investors handle such large amounts of money, it is easy enough to assume that the big money managers know more than the average investor. This is why these investors are also sometimes referred to as "smart money," and why their trades are so closely followed.

Business section: Investing ideas
Below is a list of high-growth stocks that are reporting earnings next week with institutional purchases. Do you agree with the smart money?

List sorted alphabetically. (Click here to access free, interactive tools to analyze these ideas.)

1. Accretive Health (NYSE: AH): Provides end-to-end health care revenue cycle management services and population health management services to hospitals and health care providers in the United States. Market cap at $839.99 million, most recent closing price at $8.11. Earnings to be announced on May 9. Analysts project EPS growth over the next five years at 26.67%. Net institutional purchases in the current quarter at 5.3 million shares, which represents about 10.97% of the company's float of 48.3 million shares.

2. Akorn (Nasdaq: AKRX): Engages in the manufacture and marketing of diagnostic and therapeutic pharmaceutical products, hospital drugs, and injectable pharmaceuticals in the United States and internationally. Market cap at $1.19 billion, most recent closing price at $12.25. Earnings to be announced on May 8. Analysts project EPS growth over the next five years at 45.39%. Net institutional purchases in the current quarter at 6.8 million shares, which represents about 9.71% of the company's float of 70.06 million shares.

3. Cornerstone OnDemand: Provides learning and talent management solution delivered as software-as-a-service. Market cap at $975.33 million, most recent closing price at $19.47. Earnings to be announced on May 7. Analysts project EPS growth over the next five years at 43.33%. Net institutional purchases in the current quarter at 10.5 million shares, which represents about 34.38% of the company's float of 30.54 million shares.

4. Envestnet: Provides technology-enabled, Web-based investment solutions and services to financial advisors. Market cap at $396.04 million, most recent closing price at $12.15. Earnings to be announced on May 9. Analysts project EPS growth over the next five years at 38.40%. Net institutional purchases in the current quarter at 1.8 million shares, which represents about 7.62% of the company's float of 23.63 million shares.

5. Gulfport Energy (Nasdaq: GPOR): Develops, and produces oil and gas in the Louisiana Gulf Coast. Market cap at $1.4 billion, most recent closing price at $24.21. Earnings to be announced on May 8. Analysts project EPS growth over the next five years at 48%. Net institutional purchases in the current quarter at 2.8 million shares, which represents about 5.67% of the company's float of 49.41 million shares.

6. Procera Networks (Nasdaq: PKT): Provides network traffic awareness, analysis, and control solutions for broadband service providers. Market cap at $283.88 million, most recent closing price at $19.91. Earnings to be announced on May 7. Analysts project EPS growth over the next five years at 26.25%. Net institutional purchases in the current quarter at 1.3 million shares, which represents about 9.23% of the company's float of 14.09 million shares.

7. Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX): Operates in the hosting and cloud computing industry. Market cap at $7.71B, most recent closing price at $57.50. Earnings to be announced on May 7. Analysts project EPS growth over the next five years at 31.36%. Net institutional purchases in the current quarter at 8.0 million shares, which represents about 7.52% of the company's float of 106.45 million shares.

8. Resolute Energy: Engages in the acquisition, exploration, exploitation, and development of oil and gas properties primarily in onshore properties in the United States. Market cap at $636.21 million, most recent closing price at $10.31. Earnings to be announced on May 7. Analysts project EPS growth over the next five years at 35.85%. Net institutional purchases in the current quarter at 3.5 million shares, which represents about 12.76% of the company's float of 27.44 million shares.

9. XPO Logistics: Provides non-asset-based, third-party logistics services using a network of relationships with ground, sea, and air carriers in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Market cap at $133.07 million, most recent closing price at $16.21. Earnings to be announced on May 9. Analysts project EPS growth over the next five years at 54.30%. Net institutional purchases in the current quarter at 1.1 million shares, which represents about 14.14% of the company's float of 7.78 million shares.

Interactive Chart: Press Play to compare changes in analyst ratings over the last two years for the stocks mentioned above. Analyst ratings sourced from Zacks Investment Research.