Don't settle for ordinary quarterly reports.

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

We can start with Ebix (Nasdaq: EBIX). The provider of enterprise software for the insurance industry earned $0.36 a share in its latest quarter, 50% ahead of where it was a year ago. Wall Street was settling for a profit of only $0.30 a share.

Despite the heady growth, Ebix remains an underfollowed and undervalued player in the otherwise sexy cloud-computing space. Ebix is trading for just 13 times next year's projected bottom line, a fraction of the multiples commanded by the more widely followed salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) and SuccessFactors (Nasdaq: SFSF).

Ebix shareholders can't mind living in the shadows, since obscurity has helped it post three consecutive quarters of market-thumping net income.

Disney (NYSE: DIS) lived up to its "happiest place on Earth" billing, blowing past Wall Street's "goofy" profit target of $0.58 a share for its fiscal third quarter. The family entertainment giant came through with earnings of $0.67 a share. All five of Disney's subsidiaries posted year-over-year gains on the top line.

Finally, we have SunPower (Nasdaq: SPWRA) attracting a pair of analyst upgrades, after shining through with an adjusted quarterly profit of $0.15 a share. Analysts were banking on net income of only $0.10 a share. It was a good week for solar energy plays, as JA Solar (Nasdaq: JASO) and LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK) reversed year-ago deficits with chunky profitability.

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.