Wall Street's Best Unknown Stocks

When asked for the secret of his success, baseball player Wee Willie Keeler replied, "Hit 'em where they ain't." What worked for Willie at the plate applies equally well in investing. 

Seeking stocks that others ignore, shun, or simply forget gives individual investors like you an edge over the professionals. When Wall Street turns a blind eye, you have a chance to get in before these stocks get discovered -- or rediscovered -- and start taking off. 

Below, we'll check out companies with only a smidge of analyst coverage, then pair our list with the opinions of the Motley Fool CAPS community. A stock that garners CAPS' top ratings, but hasn't yet caught analysts' attention, could be your next home run investment. 

Source: Yahoo! Finance.

Remember, without analyst support, you'll have to do your own scouting to see whether these stocks deserve a spot in your portfolio. Don't just buy or sell them based solely on their appearance here. 

A utility player
When consumers can choose to wear True Religion (Nasdaq: TRLG), VF's (NYSE: VFC) 7 for All Mankind, or Paige Premium Denim, why would they try on Joe's Jeans?

Part of the reason is simply that Joe's Jeans are the flavor of the month. Beyonce, Brangelina, and other celebrities are out on Hollywood's Walk of Fame wearing them, which helps Joe's bring in customers. Beyond star infatuation, though, as a lower-cost premium jean, they also have the same kind of "affordable luxury" cachet that Coach (NYSE: COH) brings to the handbag market when it goes up against Louis Vuitton and Gucci. Joe's Jeans is also branching out beyond denim, generating 19% of its sales in its most recent quarter from non-denim offerings such as leggings, T-shirts, and knit tops.

Still, these aren't underserved markets, and Joe's Jeans is increasing its costs by changing from a brand licensor to a retail-store operator. It will partially address this by shipping production out of the country, as it did when denim production was moved to Mexico, but rivals might capitalize on that. Quirky American Apparel (NYSE: APP) happily touts that its threads are made in downtown Los Angeles.

During the transition, Joe's Jeans will encounter some growing pains, according to CAPS member velo15. But DeezExcalibur says it has a lot of momentum:

Revenue growth in the double digits. Niche market in women's retail and rivals the likes of "True Religion." Expanding product lines to womens apparel and footwear licensing. Expanding by opening new stores in select locations. This is a classic growth stock

Remember this?
Back when swine flu was scaring the bejesus out of people, the shares of any company that said it had even written the word "vaccine" on a whiteboard soared in response. Ultimately, cooler heads prevailed.

Novavax was one company whose stock rallied, in part because it does offer a technology that can have a vaccine available in a matter of weeks, instead of the typical months,. Now it's reporting that clinical trials show its vaccines are safe for those 60 and older, while previous tests confirmed it was safe for adults 18 to 49 (I guess if you're in your 50s, you're out of luck).

Although almost 70% of CAPS members rating the biotech believe it will outperform the market, it's still a hard sell with a lot of hype to overcome. Why not head over to the Novavax CAPS page and add your opinion?

It's palladium, my precious
Natural gas might be the Rodney Dangerfield of energy; it can't get any respect, and its prices remain depressed. With inventories rising to almost 19% above the five-year averages, and the spread between oil and gas widening even further to more than 21-to-1, everyone's got a good reason to hate natural gas.

CAPS All-Star Matt8265 says that since natural gas is the low-cost alternative fuel, United States Natural Gas will eventually rebound. But another All-Star, Griffin416, views the exchange-traded fund as an abject failure. There isn't any disagreement from CAPS member Wh1sp, who notes the large role the ETF plays in its own decline:

In practice, UNG has even more issues, including an increasingly large market impact. Simply look at the returns of UNG over the past years versus the spot price to see the issues. The risk in this trade is that [Contango] increases even more, which could neutralize the underperformance in the short term.

Swing for the fences
When seeking investments where no one else is looking, Motley Fool CAPS is the best place to start your own research. Read a company's financial reports, scrutinize key data and charts, and examine the comments your fellow investors have made -- all from a stock's CAPS page. 

Sign up today for the completely free service, and tell us whether these hidden stock opportunities will help us go one up on Wall Street.