3 Predictions for Next Week

I went out on a limb last week, and now it's time to see how that decision played out.

• I predicted that Sirius XM Radio (SIRI 0.16%) would close lower on the week. The satellite-radio provider has been a market beast over the past four years, but racing to a new multiyear high when tech giants were starting to enter the premium-audio market seemed risky. Shares of Sirius XM declined 2.5% on the week. I was right.
• I predicted that the tech-heavy Nasdaq would outperform the Dow Jones Industrial Average. (^DJI 0.42%). This has been a tricky call lately, so how did it play out this time? Well, the market finally took a breather this week, and secondary stocks closed flat, with the Nasdaq shedding less than 0.1% on the week. The Dow managed to close 1.2% lower. I was right.
• My final call was for Costco (COST -0.50%) to beat Wall Street's income estimates in its latest quarter. The class act in warehouse clubs has been posting blowout quarterly results over the past year, and I was banking on seeing the trend continue. Analysts were looking for a profit of $1.03 a share during the quarter, and it came through with earnings of $1.04 a share. Wow! That was close. But I was right.

Three out of three? Awesome! That makes me 16 out of 18 over the past six weeks.

Let me once again whip out my trusty, dusty, and occasionally accurate crystal ball to make three calls that may play out over the next few trading days.

1. Titan Machinery will close lower on the week
Titan Machinery (TITN 0.59%) is in a slump. Analysts have been slashing their projections for the specialty retailer of agricultural and construction equipment. One would think that construction would be on the rise given the housing boom. An improving economy should benefit farmers. However, Titan Machinery isn't cashing in on the trends.

This company has been consistently profitable since going public in 2007, but that streak will probably end in a few days. Wall Street is bracing for a small deficit when Titan Machinery reports on Thursday. It doesn't help that Titan has missed analyst profit estimates in three of the past four quarters.

My call here is for shares of the company to move lower on the week.

2. The Nasdaq Composite will beat the Dow this week
Tech has been a big winner in recent years, so betting on tech over stodgy blue chips has been a good bet for me more often than not.

I'm going to stick with this pick. Most of the names in the composite are just too cheap at this point, and tech should be what carries us through the economic recovery. The market is ripe for the tech-stacked secondary stocks to continue to outpace the 30 megacaps that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

3. Francesca's Holdings will beat Wall Street's earnings estimates
Some stocks are just flat-out better than others.

Francesca's Holdings (FRAN) is a fast-growing retailer of women's apparel and accessories. The boutique operator stocks a wide range of outfits but orders only a small amount of each item per store. When it's gone, it's gone. The scarcity adds to the urgency of the shopping experience, and that's paying off. Analysts see revenue soaring 30% this quarter.

Another thing this company does is make analysts look like perpetual underachievers. If analysts say it posted a profit of $0.26 a share in its latest quarter, I'll whip out a "greater than" sign. History's on my side!

One of my best tricks to beating the market is finding stocks that perpetually land ahead of the prognosticators. Let's go over the past year of earnings reports.

Source: Thomson Reuters.

Things can change, of course. Fashion is fickle, and shoppers can tire of a chain no matter how hot it may have been in the past. Reports last week out of the apparel retail sector were mixed. What if Francesca's proves mortal?

However, it's hard to argue against the trend. Everything seems to be falling into place for another market-thumping quarter on the bottom line.

Three for the road
Well, there are three predictions right there. Let's see how I fare this week.