Tomorrow's Monster Stock?

Stocks climbing to 10 times their original price are rare breeds -- but they're not impossible to find. Especially when you have Fools for friends.

The market's best stocks include companies that have risen dozens of times in value by taking advantage of the market's weaknesses. These aren't penny stocks; they're viable companies with sound business prospects that are achieving phenomenal returns. Finding just one or two of these monstrously successful firms can help you establish a winning portfolio.

Stalking the monster
To find tomorrow's winners, we've enlisted the help of more than 170,000 monster trackers at Motley Fool CAPS. We've compiled a list of the most successful CAPS members, 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.

Score is how many percentage points by which that pick is beating the S&P 500.

Of course, this is not a list of stocks to buy -- or, for those monster stocks that our CAPS All-Stars have already found, sell. Just consider them starting points for your own further research of extreme buying opportunities.

In search of Bigfoot
China is not just an economic powerhouse, it is quickly becoming a huge travel destination, with the United Nations World Tourism Organization making the bold prediction that over the next seven years it will become the world's largest. Some 53 million people traveled to China last year alone, surpassing Italy, the U.K., and Germany. Moreover, nearly 80 million people will travel from China by 2015 according to some estimates.

It explains in large part why Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) has been focusing on Asia with its Agoda service, and why Expedia is planning on spending upwards of $50 million to expand there over the next three years. But Ctrip.com, as China's leading travel portal, is likely to grab the lion's share of that growing business. Last quarter, revenues soared 49% from 2009, and all four of its segments grew by at least 36%. Package tours were up an astounding 161% during the period.

It also helps underscore the assertion by CAPS member frqntflyr, who says to look for the wealth effect to bolster travel:

Great entry point IMO. The 20% correction leaves us with reasonable valuations for a company positioned right in the middle of the China growth story. Aside from wealth creation in China, as the Yuan appreciates vs euro and Dollar, the Chinese will enjoy cheaper travel abroad.

Add Ctrip.com to your watchlist and have all the Foolish news and analysis aggregated for you in a single place.

A gold standard
If Intel's earnings are any indication, wafer test specialist FormFactor should be able to overcome the adversity it succumbed to in 2010 and return to profitability this year. At least that's what management is counting on.

While Intel was once one of FormFactor's major customers, it's since fallen in importance (Elpida represented almost half of its revenues in 2009), but it remains an industry bellwether nonetheless. Intel's earnings last week indicated its capital spending program would be in the neighborhood of $9 billion this year, indicating there's going to be a need for wafer test business still. Even if the great majority doesn't come from Intel, FormFactor's advanced technology will still benefit.

The turnaround efforts of the new management team attracted the attention of CAPS member markofzorro, though he does realize there are risks aplenty:

The turn around team seems headed in the right direction. Its a solid product and demand should grow much faster than that for chips. Plenty of risks: that the turnaround fails, that companies postpone new computer purchases, that PCs and personal hardware demand suddenly falls and stays down.

Let us know on the FormFactor CAPS page or in the comments below whether the coffee slinger should go undercover or be out loud and proud.

Inflating values
If the mine explosion hadn't happened last year, you wonder whether Massey Energy would find itself in the position of having to consider a buyout offer from Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE: ANR). It's produced two straight quarters of losses and is expected to run that string to three in the fourth quarter as coal shipments fell short of expectations by around 1.4 million tons. But with valuations in the sector looking cheap, Massey might not be the only one that could be a potential target. International Coal (NYSE: ICO) has investors speculating, and Arch Coal (NYSE: ACI) is looking for someone to buy.

Highly rated CAPS All-Star dmccartney appreciates the help the stock price has received from all the takeover talk, but he finds Massey a worthy investment on its own merits:

The price of this stock was beaten down by the negative publicity regarding the mine accident killing several miners several months ago, however the fundamentals are still good. I got in at a good price, but there has also been rumors of a takeover, which is helping to keep the stock price high.

A chance for scary growth
It takes more than a few All-Star picks and a quick pitch to make buy or sell decisions, so start your own research on these stocks on Motley Fool CAPS and find other opportunities with monster potential.