Rocket Stocks for the Week

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By Jonas Elmerraji BALTIMORE (TheStreet) -- The S&P 500 changed its modus operandi this week, closing lower for the first time in a while. The broad-based index shed 1.22%, closing at 1,016.40 on Friday after a last-ditch attempt to finish the week in the black.

But once again, Stockpickr's Rocket Stocks fared much better than the market. In fact, if you'd invested in each of last week's picks, you'd have outperformed the S&P by 4.1%. And as of this week, our Rocket Stock picks from the past eight weeks have outperformed the S&P 500 by 19.9%.

Here's a look at how last week's Rocket Stocks fared.

Last week's top gainer was payment processing company VeriFone(PAY Quote). The company ended the week up 24.95% on stellar earnings and guidance. VeriFone rings in as our second-best-performing Rocket Stock to date, eclipsed only by AIG's(AIG Quote) 52.91% leap the week before. (Join the AIG discussion on Stockpickr Answers.)

Comcast(CMCSA Quote) and CVS Caremark(CVS Quote) also ended the week strong, yielding 3.95% and 1.17%, respectively.

Our worst performer by far was Zale(ZLC Quote), which closed Friday ahead of this week's earnings down 11.61%.

Now onto this week's stocks.

You may be surprised to hear that the first pick for this week is none other than Zale. While this stock disappointed in a big way last week, with earnings scheduled for Sept. 9, this jewelling stock still stands a good shot at impressing investors. Much of Zale's tumble last week was a result of the company's pushing back earnings, which were supposed to be released last week, in order to resolve some noncash adjustments.