Tomorrow's Monster Stocks

Stocks that climb to 10 times their original price are a rare breed. But they're not impossible to find, especially when you have Fools for friends.

The market's best stocks include companies that have risen thousands of times in value over the past decade. These aren't penny stocks. They're viable companies that possess sound business prospects and have achieved phenomenal returns every year. Finding just one or two of these monstrously successful companies can help you establish a winning portfolio.

Stalking the monster
To find tomorrow's monster stocks, we'll enlist the more than 82,000 investors at Motley Fool CAPS. We've compiled a list of the most successful CAPS players, dubbed All-Stars, whose picks have doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled in price. Then we've plucked out some of their recent picks for stocks they find equally promising.

Of course, this is not a list of stocks to buy -- nor, for the monster stocks that our CAPS All-Stars have already found, are they stocks to sell. Just consider them starting points for your own further research.

Does it compute?
The economic downturn has caused trouble for the semiconductor industry. The thinking was that with credit tight, buying new computers -- and, thus, the chips that go into them -- wasn't a high priority, and the sector would decline. Yet not only did Advanced Micro Devices put out better numbers than anticipated, but Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) also have been singing the same refrain: Things are not as bad as everyone thought, at least in computing.

AMD is coming off a rocky year, much of it a result of its acquisition of ATI and problems with its Barcelona chip. The debt that has been weighing it down still presents a high hurdle for the company, but CAPS investor egenesis thinks its ability to raise and generate cash won't be hampered at all:

Stock fell so much that [price-to-book] and [price-to-sales] values are inverted ... the company has about $4-5bil revenue but only $3bil market cap; while it paid too much for ATI and now has big debt, it should be digesting soon and offer synergistic products; EU is likely to rule in favor, against Intel monopolistic practices in 08 or 09, Japan will probably follow, in which case Intel may have to back off in the US to preclude any regulatory action, just like MS had to; seems company will not have problem finding cash, considering the recent ~$.5bil investment from Abu Dhabi; Chinese and Singapore will be too glad to have a piece as well.

Others, such as CAPS player gct182, see the chip maker's current price not as a sign of weakness but as an opportunity for profit.

Though they've had trouble lately, AMD still make a strong product. Once the ATI merger begins to bear fruit, they'll really start to give Intel a run for their money. The fact that this stock is at a 4 year low makes it a bargain.

And some investors who think AMD will lose to the market in the short term see its long-term prospects as brighter. Investor nriggs thinks the market won't begin to appreciate AMD's potential until later this year.

AMD has had a rough year and a rough release for their new processor, Phenom. I think they will continue to slide through the 4th and 1st quarter as they are taking a beating from Intel right now. However, I expect as the rough edges are smoothed out around Phenom we will see AMD bouncing back [mid-2008].

A chance for scary growth
Now's the opportunity for you to weigh in on AMD or any of the other stocks these All-Stars see as achieving monster growth. Agree with their views? Disagree? Tell us on CAPS, where your voice counts just as much as everyone else's. Let's hear whether you think these stocks are tomorrow's monsters.