Surprising Low-Rated Stocks Leaders Love

Piggybacking on the picks of great investors and money managers can often lead to big rewards -- especially when the stocks in question are beaten down. If Warren Buffett's buying railroads, perhaps you should look there, too. Does Bill Miller think financial stocks are beaten down? Maybe investigating more closely will help improve your own results.

Over on Motley Fool CAPS, our top-rated All-Star players represent the best 20% of our more than 97,000 professional and novice investors. I'm looking among them for those who've chosen one- and two-star stocks to outperform the market. The majority of CAPS investors may consider these stocks losers, but if our ace players think otherwise, these picks might be worth a look.

Here are a few stocks that have gotten the nod from the cream of our CAPS investors:

Typically, there's a low-rated stock that has also enjoyed a large one-year run-up in its stock price, leaving me leery. Sure, stocks can continue to run, but these picks' high valuations -- and low ratings -- leave me cold. This week, it's Internet retailer and Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation Amazon, but then again, it has confounded me plenty of times through the years.

However, I'm going to pass on that one and consider the next-best performer, Seabridge Gold.

A bridge to nowhere?
In times of uncertainty, investors tend to flee to security. In inflationary times, they flock to gold, which in and of itself has intrinsic value, unlike a debased dollar. With the Federal Reserve keeping the dollar's printing presses running full time to ensure liquidity in the markets, gold continues its inexorable climb toward $1,000 an ounce. And with many expecting that the Fed will lower interest rates yet again, that could be the push it needs to hit that lofty level.

While mining companies like Yamana Gold (NYSE: AUY) and Goldcorp (NYSE: GG) have risen in tandem with gold, Seabridge Gold, although up 23% over the past year, is actually down 26% year to date. The discrepancy may be that though it's a "gold" company, it's only an exploratory business right now with no revenue. Seabridge Gold looks to locate potential gold-producing mines, then sell them to other companies for actual production. Although it has a large base of "inferred resources," as the company notes in its annual report, such resources have a "great amount of uncertainty as to their existence, and great uncertainty as to their economic and legal feasibility."

In other words, there may be a large difference between what Seabridge Gold says it has and what, if anything, someone can actually get out of the mine. There's hope and then there's wishful thinking. There's also a lot of skepticism associate with this exploration company, as CAPS player TMFHollywoodDan points out.

A whole lotta 99-rated players, including David G., have taken some ferocious bear dumps on this revenue-less, BILLION dollar stock. I hope to be at the party when the yacht crashes as I will then turn on my jet pack and fly off to a big CAPS gain.

A year ago, top-rated All-Star slbutton enumerated a number of red flags in the company's annual report.

This is at best a dubious idea, and at worst a vehicle for the enrichment of management. The company is hemorrhaging cash, which they replenish by printing more stock. In theory, they use this money to acquire mineral resources which -- again, in theory -- offset the share dilution. However, a lot of this money seems to have ended up in the pockets of management.

On the other hand, Seabridge Gold bulls like austin2307 seek a correlation between macroeconomic factors like the value of the dollar versus the price of gold.

With the U.S. dollar weakening, both Gold & silver prices are going to keep going up. And even when the U.S. dollar gets stronger, gold & silver should stay strong.

Finding value under rocks
So there you have it -- five low-rated laggards that have gotten big endorsements from some of the best and brightest investors in the CAPS community, although there are always some who are not so sure. If you want to add your two cents on these or any other companies, sign up to join Motley Fool CAPS, absolutely free.