BANK OF AMERICA: These 16 stocks are primed to smash investor expectations and beat the market as we enter the most crucial stretch of earnings season

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• A third of all S&P 500 companies are set to report third-quarter earnings during the weeks of Oct. 22 and Oct. 29.
• These two busy weeks are the most important for stock pickers looking for opportunities to beat their benchmarks, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
• The firm's analysts compiled a list of buy-rated stocks reporting during these two crucial weeks, which they expect to outperform the market's expectations.

We're officially in the most important two weeks of earnings season, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

They're the two busiest periods during which S&P 500 companies will update investors on their third-quarter performance, and when many will provide guidance for the months ahead.

By BofAML's calculation, 33% of earnings are on tap this week and next.

The firm's analysts went a step further to identify the stocks that are poised to deliver the biggest earnings surprises. For stock pickers, these post-earnings rallies could mean returns bigger than what the broader market is offering.

"Alpha opportunity should be high: our work suggests that stock differentiation is heightened during earnings season, particularly the busiest reporting days, which fall this week on Oct. 23-25 and next week on Oct 30-Nov 1," a team led by Savita Subramanian said in a note on Monday.

The list below showcases stocks that BofAML has handpicked as most likely to beat earnings expectations. They are all buy-rated, and are scheduled to report third-quarter results during the earnings-season peak that Subramanian specified.

They are ranked in ascending order of the number of standard deviations between BofAML's earnings-per-share estimates and the consensus. A higher Z-score implies that the firm's analysts are more bullish than their peers.

Get the latest Bank of America stock price here.