Mmm, something smells good over at pizza maker Papa John's (NASDAQ:PZZA).

This Motley Fool Hidden Gems Watch List stock will announce earnings after the close of trading tomorrow. Now, some traders insist that any company with good news to report would do so early in the morning to give its stock a full six-and-a-half hours of trading to skyrocket. Baloney. Sure, sometimes a late-day release contains bad news. And sometimes an early release contains good news. But two examples just last week disproved those rules. "Supermarket to the world" Archer Daniels Midland (NYSE:ADM) released before market-open on Friday; it missed estimates by a penny. Mattress maker and official Motley Fool Hidden Gems recommendation Select Comfort (NASDAQ:SCSS) released after the close on Tuesday and blew estimates out of the water.

Simply put, knowing when a company releases its numbers doesn't give you much of a clue as to how the earnings will come out. Where can you get a clue, then? Look at what the company has already told you about its quarter and what other companies have told you about their quarters.

In Papa John's case, we've already learned that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita did a number on the company's stores, shaving 0.4% off comparable domestic sales. But even with the hurricane-related interference, the company reported that its domestic comps for the quarter were up 3.9% year-over-year, and international comps were even better -- up 12.4%. As a result, analysts are expecting to see the pizza maker report very good numbers tomorrow. At last report, they predicted that Papa John's would transform low-single-digit sales gains into a 14% increase in profits over the year-ago quarter. Analysts are looking for $234 million in total revenues and $0.55 in profits per diluted share.

What's more, last week's news from rival pizza hawker Domino's (NYSE:DPZ) contained an additional reason to hope that Papa John's numbers won't disappoint. In explaining how it beat estimates in its own right, Domino's mentioned that lower cheese costs helped defray its costs of doing business. Because cheese is a commodity, it stands to reason that Papa John's benefited from the same low costs that helped Domino's out. For that reason, this Fool expects to see especially tasty results from Papa John's tomorrow afternoon.

A few slices of further Foolishness:

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Fool contributor Rich Smithdoes not own shares of any company named in this article.