Focusing on the S&P 500 as of Friday afternoon, 23 stocks have reported. Twenty of those surprised on earnings and three disappointed. On sales numbers, 17 surprised and six disappointed.

Just as impressive, 19 companies reported positive growth over last year.

When you look at the 23 companies as a whole, earnings for the quarter totaled $20.46 billion compared to $4.83 billion for last year… an increase of 322.93%.

So despite disappointing job numbers and consumer sentiment readings – which led to an up and down week – the recovery lives.

With so many stocks surprising, it’s easier to look at the companies that disappointed. Google missed numbers – for the first time ever – by 1.09% thanks to an acquisition and hiring binge. Mattel missed by 7.5% in the ever-fickle toy business. And Peoples United Financial missed by 4.29% due to some one-time charges.

The big news for the week, though – aside from Alcoa and CSX’s success, which I already recapped – was Intel Corp (Nasdaq: INTC). The company reported the largest quarterly income in its history and showed that consumers and businesses are buying up PCs.

Expect a handful of semi-conductor stocks to make our portfolio this season.

For now, we’re still waiting. We let stocks cool off for about 10 days or more after surprises. And since there are 5,000 stocks to choose from, there’s no need to rush in on day one.

Meanwhile, if you tried to close the options on CARBO Ceramics (NYSE: CRR) as I suggested last week, you should have gotten fills on both for 100% and 25% gains.

Ahead of the tape,

Matthew Weinschenk