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 companies 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 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, to sell. Just consider them starting points for your own further research of extreme buying opportunities.

In search of Bigfoot
Across most of the major shale plays -- Marcellus, Haynesville, Barnett -- natural-gas leader Chesapeake Energy is developing its inventory of 39,000 drill sites by deploying 156 drilling rigs. Virtually all of them are tapping sources that might have been inaccessible in the past but can now be reached through horizontal drilling techniques. Some 151 of the 156 rigs are going horizontal.

Other energy producers are operating in a similar fashion. SandRidge Energy (NYSE: SD) has 23 of its 67 rigs in the Mississippian play drilling horizontally, and it reports that across the industry, there are 170 rigs there doing so, too. SandRidge, in fact, plans to drill 130 horizontal wells there this year alone. Even Samson Oil & Gas (NYSE: SSN) is drilling horizontally in the Bakken Formation.

The importance of this development is how it has contributed to the glut of natural gas on the market that has depressed everyone's share price. But finally, things may be changing for the better. Natural-gas pricing has moved well above $4.00 per thousand cubic feet, the number of rigs drilling for natural gas has continued to decline, and inventory in underground storage is more than 1% below the five-year average.

CAPS member trollzindawoodz believes that natural gas remains attractive for consumers and, in turn, redounds to the drillers such as Chesapeake: "Even with the problems [liquefied natural gas] is having it will still be the cheapest for [consumers; therefore, stocks hopefully] will go up for shareholders."

Drill down further on the Chesapeake Energy CAPS page, and give us your take on the future of natural gas.

Share and share alike
Enterprise-level customers have been demanding greater bandwidth to deliver content beyond what's available on their private networks. That's why Riverbed Technology's agreement with Akamai Technologies (Nasdaq: AKAM) to run each other's software on the other's networks and servers is an exciting development. The content will flow much faster, creating a private-public network system that blurs the distinctions between the two.

The shared networks will enhance the optimization of content delivery and could have customers scrambling after them when the hybrid cloud environments roll out early next year. Key to the venture's success will be that customers won't have to buy new hardware to take advantage of the better performance; it will be achievable through available technology.

CAPS member Sagemanx thinks Riverbed has its growth trajectory locked down through great patent-protected products while displaying a willingness to work closely with others.

With 94% of the CAPS members in agreement, why not follow along by adding Riverbed to your watchlist and see where the river will take you?

A bright idea
Rare-earth elements tend to get investors in a lather, and they were one of the catalysts behind General Moly's (NYSE: GMO) soaring stock at the end of last year. The molybdenum-mining company can be considered a tangential REE stock at best when you think about it, since it hasn't lifted a shovel full of molybdenum. It pales in comparison to Thompson Creek Metals, which is one of the biggest moly producers but also has diversified streams of gold and copper, all of which combine to create a potent metals miner that may yet prove to be one of the year's best stocks.

CAPS member meadornack says the practical application of Thompson's metals portfolio is what makes it a winning investment. More than 1,070 CAPS members have weighed in on the miner's prospects, and 98% would agree that its ability to outperform the broad market averages seems unassailable. Tell us on the Thompson Creek Metals CAPS page whether you think it can dig up any additional nuggets of growth.

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 marvel at the range of opinions there.