Don't settle for ordinary quarterly reports.

Every week I take a look at three companies that beat market expectations, since 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 pros over the past few trading days.

We can start with lululemon athletica (Nasdaq: LULU). The high-end retailer of yoga and fitness apparel rang up a quarterly profit of $0.34 a share, well ahead of the $0.31 a share that analysts were forecasting. This probably isn't a surprise to those who have seen the fast-growing company routinely beat Wall Street's bottom-line projections.

The chain recently turned heads for suing PVH's (NYSE: PVH) Calvin Klein over knockoff yoga apparel designs. It has no choice but to protect its turf given how inviting it is for companies to put out similar designs at much lower price points.

Pall (NYSE: PLL) also gave it its all. The provider of fluid management solutions posted earnings of $0.86 a share when it reported on Thursday, blowing through analysts set on a profit of $0.77 a share. Pall's report should come as a welcome surprise. Pall had come up short in three of the four previous periods.

Finally we have Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW) delivering an unexpected quarterly profit.

The networking security specialist was supposed to merely break even, reversing a large loss from a year earlier. Palo Alto Networks came through with a profit of $0.03 a share. The company went public at $42 just three months ago.

Moving in the right direction
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. If that's not up your alley just yet, you can still check out a free special report detailing the next trillion-dollar revolution.

Either way, come back next week to learn about more stocks that blew the market away in the coming days.