6 Earnings-Surprise Stocks for Your Portfolio

BALTIMORE (Stockpickr) -- It's earnings season, which means that the stakes are raised for the next six weeks or so, as a slew of significant corporate earnings results get released to the public. Earnings are a big deal for any investor: After all, good earnings can be the catalyst for monumental moves in stocks -- and poor numbers can trigger double-digit sell-offs just as easily.

It all comes down to the earnings surprise.

Simply put, an earnings surprise is when a company exceeds or falls short of the market's expectations for its results. So to be fair, it's not just strong earnings that spur a buying frenzy in a stock; instead, you need to find stocks with stronger earnings than the market had already priced in. Today, we're going to attempt to spot those stocks ahead of time.

Related: 5 Rocket Stocks to Buy for Earnings Season

To do that, we're looking at the S&P 500's perennial outperformers -- stocks that have a history of material positive earnings surprises in the last several years. Not only do they have a higher statistical likelihood of being underrated by Wall Street, but I think that these names are also much more likely to beat estimates this quarter given the subdued valuations we're seeing in 2011.

Though betting on stocks ahead of earnings adds considerable risk to even the bluest of blue-chip portfolios, it also obviously increases the potential gains that you can collect as an investor. Without further ado, here's a look at six stocks that my earnings surprise model is giving high marks to for this quarter.

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