3 Predictions for the New Week

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

• I predicted that Advanced Micro Devices (AMD -0.35%) would close higher on the week. I figured that Thursday's earnings report. combined with the company's role as powering all three of the major gaming consoles once the Xbox One and PS4 hit the market in November, would push shares of the chipmaker to higher ground. The stock moved up on an analyst upgrade earlier in the week, but it plunged on Friday after a poorly received quarterly report. AMD closed out the week 7.8% lower. I was wrong.
• I predicted that the tech-heavy Nasdaq would outperform the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI -0.11%). This has been a tricky call lately, so how did it play out this time? Well, it was a great call this week. The Nasdaq moved 3.2% higher, easily surpassing the Dow and its 1.1% gain. I was right.
• My final call was for SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) to beat Wall Street's income estimates in its latest quarter. The flash-memory leader has had a rocky run over the years, but it's been on a roll lately. It has consistently beaten bottom-line expectations. I was banking on a repeat performance. SanDisk posted an adjusted profit of $1.59 a share. well ahead of the $1.32 the pros were forecasting. I was right.

Two out of three? I can do better than that.

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. Apple will close higher on the week
I've been critical of Apple (AAPL 1.27%) lately, and I only need to scroll through reader comments on some of my articles to know that there are plenty of bulls out there who don't appreciate my perspective.

Apple hasn't been delivering impressive financials lately, but the tech darling is at its best when it's unveiling new stuff. That's exactly what will happen on Tuesday. We'll get new iPads. We'll probably get new Macs. I have my concerns about Apple's upcoming earnings report, but that comes the following week.

My first call is for Apple to move higher 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, even if many of the tech reports aside from Google posted disappointing results this past week. This is the time for Nasdaq's growth stocks to shine. 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. Broadcom will beat Wall Street's earnings estimates
Some stocks are just flat-out better than others.

Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) provides semiconductor solutions for wired and wireless communications. We live in multimedia times, and Broadcom is there to serve up voice, video, and data connectivity through system-on-a-chip and embedded software solutions.

Another thing it does is make analysts look like perpetual underachievers. If analysts say the company posted a profit of $0.69 a share in its latest quarter, I'll argue that it held up better than that. 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. The $0.69 a share that Wall Street is projecting is actually well off the $0.79 it posted a year earlier. Analysts also see flat revenue growth. It also bears pointing out that the bottom-line beats in three of the four quarters was for 4% or less. That's not overly impressive.

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.