3 Stocks That Blew the Market Away
By
Rick Aristotle Munarriz
November 9, 2009
|
Why settle for ordinary quarterly reports?
I believe that the biggest factor in a stock's ability to beat the market is its ability to beat the market's expectations. That's why I look every week at three companies that have humbled Wall Street's pros over the past few trading days. If a company has more in the tank than the analysts figured, capital appreciation often follows.
We can start with Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX). The coffee giant earned $0.24 a share before charges in its latest quarter, well ahead of both the $0.10 it rang up a year ago and the $0.21 that analysts were expecting.
Things aren't perfect at Starbucks, though. Same-store sales are still negative, and revenue fell again. However, the healthy bottom line is a testament to the company's cost-cutting strategies.
MasterCard (NYSE: MA) also charged past the pros. The credit-card giant delivered a third-quarter profit of $3.45 a share, while Wall Street was swiping its plastic at a $2.94 target. Investors should have seen this coming, since rival Visa (NYSE: V) also surpassed analyst guesstimates a week earlier.
Finally, we have Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) arriving at near-profitability fashionably early. The satellite-radio giant merely broke even before charges, but the market was braced for yet another quarterly deficit.
So keep watching the companies that surpass expectations. Over time, doing so will be a rewarding 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? Check out a 30-day trial subscription. And come on back next Monday to learn about more stocks that blew the market away.
Like this article? Get our best articles delivered direct to your inbox at no cost. Sign up for Foolwatch Weekly by entering your email below.
Terms & Conditions
RSS Headlines
Fool UK