Apple Inc. (AAPL), Apogee Enterprises, Inc. (APOG) And The Rest: Three Predictions for Next 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. Most of the names in the composite are just too cheap at this point. 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. United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE:URI) will beat Wall Street’s earnings estimates
Some stocks are just flat-out better than others.

United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE:URI) is the leading equipment-rental company, with 836 outlets offering roughly 3,300 classes of construction and industrial equipment. Another thing it does is make analysts look like perpetual underachievers. If analysts say the company posted a profit of $0.47 a share in its latest quarter, I’ll whip out a “greater than” sign. 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.

Quarter	EPS Estimate	EPS	Surprise
Q1 2012	$0.05	$0.36	620%
Q2 2012	$0.57	$0.66	16%
Q3 2012	$1.12	$1.35	21%
Q4 2012	$1.01	$1.27	26%

Source: Thomson Reuters.

Things can change, of course. The construction boom can come to a halt. Industrial production can slow. Last week’s reports of slipping consumer confidence and retail sales can’t be very encouraging. However, given the way United Rentals has obliterated analysts’ estimates with ease over the past year — it hasn’t even been close, really — it’s hard to bet against this trend.

Everything seems to be falling into place for another market-thumping quarter on the bottom line.

Three for the road
Well, there are three predictions right there. Let’s see how I fare this week.

The article 3 Predictions for Next Week originally appeared on Fool.com.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends and owns shares of Apple.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.