Back to top

Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction)

Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) looks to find companies that have recently seen positive earnings estimate revision activity. The idea is that more recent information is, generally speaking, more accurate and can be a better predictor of the future, which can give investors an advantage in earnings season.

The technique has proven to be very useful for finding positive surprises. In fact, when combining a Zacks Rank #3 or better and a positive Earnings ESP, stocks produced a positive surprise 70% of the time, while they also saw 28.3% annual returns on average, according to our 10 year backtest.

Visit the Earnings ESP Center

See the Full List of Stocks To Beat Earnings

Trending Stocks to Beat Earnings

Symbol Company
Name		 ESP Most Accurate
Estimate		 Consensus
Estimate		 Price Zacks Rank %Surprise
(Last Qtr.)		 Reporting Date
CRM Salesforce 0.76% 2.56 2.54 273.13 3 6.92% 05/28/25
DLTR Dollar Tree... 9.12% 1.29 1.18 88.17 3 -3.21% 06/04/25
DG Dollar Gene... 3.15% 1.52 1.47 101.39 2 12.00% 06/03/25
ULTA Ulta Beauty... 0.23% 5.76 5.75 407.04 3 19.15% 05/29/25
LULU lululemon a... 0.50% 2.61 2.60 310.76 3 4.96% 06/05/25

Earnings ESP Filter2/16

Use the Zacks Earnings Expected Surprise Prediction (ESP) Filter to search for stocks to buy beforehand that have the highest probability of positively surprising for profitable earnings season trading. You can also use it to find those stocks to sell before they report that are likely to negatively surprise.

Go to the Top Stocks to Beat Earnings

Using Earnings ESP Filter3/16

You can quickly see ESP Buys or ESP Sells and filter by certain criteria that you select.

Go to Full List of Stocks to Beat Earnings

ESP News

ESP in the News

Which companies are seeing ESP activity?

What is Zacks Earnings ESP?

Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) is a potent tool that investors can use to select better stocks for their portfolios. You can learn more about this concept here in our Earnings ESP Education Center:

Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction)

Find Stocks Likely to Surprise with 70% Accuracy Earnings ESP has proven to be a very valuable tool for investors seeking stocks that are most likely to beat earnings estimates. As indicated earlier, in our extensive 10-year backtest, we found that over the past decade, stocks with a positive Earnings ESP and with a Zacks Rank of #1, 2 or 3 ('Strong Buy,' 'Buy' or 'Hold'), produced a positive surprise 70% of the time.

Earnings ESP Screens

Get Daily Earnings Updates

Stay informed of all important earnings trends and events for your stocks by setting up a portfolio tracker on Zacks.com. Its free. Its easy. Best of All, you can also get a free Daily update email that tells you in a snapshot all relevent activity with the stocks you follow.