Stocks Everyone Says to Buy Now

Some stocks simply have such great potential that "everyone" knows they are a good buy today. Yeah, we wish.

If we knew beforehand that Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) was going to return nearly 800% over the past decade, not only would we have mortgaged the house on it, we'd have mortgaged your house, too!

In fact, if investing were so easy, we'd all be millionaires. It's easy to see after the fact which companies have been the winning investments. What we need is a way to know beforehand which companies will grow tens of thousands of percent in value over the years. But there hasn't been a way.

Until now, that is.

More than 76,000 professional and novice investors have rated stocks on Motley Fool CAPS, and we can check in on their opinions about which stocks will beat the market and which will lose to it. While it's often a tug-of-war between the bulls and the bears, we've identified dozens of stocks that members of CAPS have unanimously chosen to outperform the market.

That's no small feat. Thousands upon thousands of companies have been rated, and convincing arguments can be, and are, made on both sides. For example, Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation Quality Systems (NASDAQ:QSII) is a well-respected, top-rated stock that more than 1,800 CAPS investors have rated. Yet while the vast majority of them think the stock will beat the market, there are still almost 50 CAPS investors who don't.

So when you come across a stock that everyone thinks is going to outperform, you've got something special, and we as investors ought to take notice.

Here are a handful of those "obvious" investments.

As always, none of the companies on this list should be considered formal recommendations, but rather starting points for further research. What we've done is narrow your workload by focusing on those companies CAPS investors are universally expecting to beat the market.

Basking in the sunshine
With the growth in the solar business, Amtech Systems has seen an increase in orders for its products, which are used in the manufacture of silicon wafers. The company supplies the silicon semiconductor and solar-cell industries with horizontal diffusion furnaces, which are involved in several steps in the wafer-manufacturing process and are a cheaper alternative than vertical furnaces.

It's the growth of the solar industry that has started to attract a number of CAPS players to the company. In light of a recent $17 million order for its furnaces, this small but profitable company is expected to continue on a high-growth trajectory. CAPS All-Star hondo928, who has a 98.86 player rating, recognizes this, as well as the potential speculative nature of the investment: "Certainly a bit speculative here, probably as speculative as I will ever get but they have earnings, and the upside far outweighs the possible negatives."

With Amtech serving as the foundation for companies growing in this field, CAPS player linzee6394 thinks that if you're investing in solar, you need to be investing in Amtech:

So in other words, they not only make semiconductors but they also supply the companies who make semiconductors and solar cells.

So if you are into the solar companies how could you not be into this company?

This company's products and services will only be in more demand over the next decade as green power popularity grows, and if you're looking for another company to compare it to, I think of Intel.

Their subsidiary, Tempress Systems Inc., announced earlier this month that they received an additional $17.4 million in orders for diffusion processing systems from the solar cell industry. That's huge.

Let's hear from you
How about your take on these or other "obvious" winning investments? Is this the chance to light up profits from the next "buy now" stock? If you want to add your two cents, sign up to join the Motley Fool CAPS community, which is 100% free.