Analysts have been more upbeat on company earnings. Investors don't share that sentiment.

Apple, State Street and other companies have had their earnings-per-share estimates increased by analysts — one of the biggest catalysts for stocks to rise.

Such a disconnect may mean those companies' share prices may get a lift after they publish their earnings reports this week. A total of 122 S&P 500 members will release second-quarter results today through Friday.

The problem is, predicting the direction of a stock based on an earnings report is essentially as good as a coin flip. According to information collected during the past nine years by Bespoke Investment Group, a stock has risen in 32,563 instances, or 49.9% of the time, on the day a company reports earnings. Investors may have a better chance of winning at a Las Vegas casino.

To improve chances, perhaps, here are the five companies whose share prices are most out of line with analysts' EPS upgrades over the past month.

1. Apple

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[AAPL  Loading...      ()   ] has been bruised because of antenna problems with the company's new iPhone 4 handset. In the span of less than a month, Apple released the iPhone 4 and saw its stock hit an all-time high of $279.01 before dropping back below $250 in early July.

Report Date: July 20, after market closes

One-Month Price Change: 6% decline

One-Month Revisions to EPS: Analysts have increased their EPS targets by an average of 3.4% over the past month, according to Thomson Reuters. Twenty firms, including Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, have increased their earnings targets, while only five have lowered them.

Expectations: On average, analysts predict that Apple will report a quarterly profit of $3.07 a share on revenue of $14.6 billion. When reporting fiscal second-quarter results in April, Apple offered conservative guidance for its fiscal third quarter, as it often does. At the time, Apple said it expects revenue in the range of $13 billion to $13.4 billion on earnings in a range of $2.28 to $2.39 a share. On April 21, the day after Apple reported second-quarter results, the stock jumped 6%.