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 Rockwell Medical (RMTI 0.99%) would post a larger loss than analysts were expecting. The biotech was set to have an important presentation at a conference with new data on its anemia-tackling treatment for those with kidney diseases, but Rockwell's been posting big deficits all along the way. Rockwell posted a loss of $0.34 a share, far worse than the $0.24 Wall Street was projecting. I was right.
• I predicted that the tech-heavy Nasdaq would outperform the Dow Jones Industrial Average. (^DJI 0.73%). This has been a tricky call lately, so how did it play out this time? Well, this was a mixed week for stocks. The Nasdaq moved marginally lower, losing out to the Dow and its 0.9% gain. I was wrong.
• My final call was for OpenTable (OPEN) to beat Wall Street's income estimates in its latest quarter. The leading provider of Web-based dining reservations had consistently beaten bottom-line expectations over the past year, and I was banking on a repeat performance. It served up an adjusted profit of $0.44 a share, blowing past the $0.25 the pros were forecasting. The stock rallied sharply on the news. 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. NQ Mobile will move higher on the week
NQ Mobile (NYSE: NQ) has been one of the market's biggest losers since the sharp-hitting Muddy Waters called the Chinese provider of Internet services a sham. NQ has shed nearly half of its value since the attack late last month.

Muddy Waters stands by its attack, even as NQ denies the allegations of fuzzy accounting. Muddy Waters may be right -- we will find out eventually -- but NQ will have a great opportunity to publicly argue its case when it reports quarterly results on Tuesday.

If it offers a convincing argument that everything is on the up and up, NQ would be a screaming bargain here at just 8.5 times next year's projected earnings. It's growing considerably faster than the multiple suggests.

My first call is for NQ's stock to bounce back this week, but the long-term outlook is clearly as muddy as it is Muddy.

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 it's been a bad bet a few times lately. 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. Vipshop will beat Wall Street's earnings estimates
Some stocks are just flat-out better than others.

Vipshop (VIPS 1.76%) is a fast-growing provider of flash sales in China. It provides fashionable apparel at discount prices for those acting quickly to snap up the deal.

Another thing it does is make analysts look like perpetual underachievers. If analysts say the company posted a profit of $0.21 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. Consumer-facing Chinese companies have been falling out of favor in recent weeks, and it's hard to dismiss that Vipshop almost fell short in its latest quarter. It had trounced expectations in its previous quarters. Websites specializing in hot deals also face fickle users that can move on to a rival offering if the flash sales are out of touch with what shoppers want.

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.