It is not surprising that before an earnings season, every investor looks for stocks that can beat market expectations. This is because investors always try to position themselves ahead of time and look to tap stocks that are of high quality. In this regard, we ran a screener that yielded Wingstop (NASDAQ: WING), Burlington Stores (NYSE: BURL) and Prokidney CP (NASDAQ: PROK) as the likely winners on the earnings beat potential. Why Is a Positive Earnings Surprise So Important? Historically, stocks of companies with solid quarterly earnings (on a nominal basis) tank if they miss or merely meet market expectations. After all, a 20% earnings rise (though apparently looks good) doesn't tell you if earnings growth has been exhibiting a decelerating trend. Also, seasonal fluctuations come into play sometimes. If a company's Q1 is seasonally weak and Q4 strong, then it is likely to report a sequential earnings decline. In such cases, growth rates are misleading while judging the true health of a company. On the other hand, after much brainstorming and analysis of companies' financials and initiatives, Wall Street analysts project earnings for companies. They, in fact, club their insights and a company's guidance when deriving an earnings estimate. Thus, outperforming that estimate is almost equivalent to beating the company's own expectation as well as the market perception. And if the margin of earnings surprise is big, ...