Don't settle for ordinary quarterly reports.

I take a look at three companies that beat market expectations every week, because 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 priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN). The "name your price" travel website earned $5.33 a share in its latest quarter, well ahead of the $4.97 a share that Wall Street had expected.

The results were enough to send priceline.com shares off to their highest levels since the dot-com bubble popped, but investors should have seen this one coming. The travel portal has obliterated Wall Street's profit targets on a quarterly basis for years. It also only helps that deals publisher Travelzoo (Nasdaq: TZOO) and rival travel portals Expedia (Nasdaq: EXPE) and Orbitz Worldwide (NYSE: OWW) all landed well ahead of bottom-line projections during the same quarter.

LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK) became the latest solar energy stock to take off after a market-thumping report. The company earned $0.72 a share in its latest quarter, ahead of both the $0.29 a share it delivered a year ago and the $0.43 a share that Mr. Market had set his sights on.

Then we have Ebix (Nasdaq: EBIX), which provides cloud computing solutions for the insurance industry. It rang up another blowout quarter, with revenue and net income up 43% and 77%, respectively. Ebix's profit of $0.43 a share crushed the market's target of $0.32 a share.

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.