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 160,000 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.

Souce: CAPS. 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
It's unlikely that all the reports of runaway Toyotas are actually because of mechanical malfunctions and not driver error or some who are trying to cash in on a company's woes. But Ford (NYSE: F) has stepped into the breach at just the right time with attractive, fuel-efficient cars that rival anything from the competition in safety and styling. It's certainly no coincidence that Toyota's car sales dropped 9% in February compared with last year, while Ford's sales rose more than 43% (53% domestically) at the same time it was gaining market share.

If investor sentiment is any indication, Ford might want to gain as much traction as it can while Toyota resolves this public relations nightmare. CAPS member evilcliver looks for the Japanese carmaker to rebound once the media feeding frenzy subsides.

I am betting that the media storm has peaked. The news coming out now is mostly anecdotal. Toyota could have been more proactive in handling this mess, but they will recover. Time to buy is now, while the clouds are still obscuring their sunny future.

A glittering opportunity still?
Unlike superdave1979, almost 54% of the more than 1,500 CAPS members rating smartphone maker Palm have indicated they think it will underperform the market. That could be because the company is suffering from a crisis of confidence by investors; some analysts think a rival will buy it out. Apparently unable to effectively compete against offerings from Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), or Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM), Palm said it expected revenues would miss analyst expectations by a wide margin.

Even with the 75% drop in Palm's stock price over the past six months, CAPS All-Star TotoMMB thinks Palm's stock still hasn't found its floor.

Got my pick in after the 25% drop, but it has farther to go. Even if the market goes back up, this stays flat, at best.

Dial up your own opinion on the Palm CAPS page.

A graphic example
Now that the House of Representatives has passed its  massive health-care proposal, will big-ticket device makers like Intuitive Surgical suffer any consequences? Some investors expect to see lots of aberrations in medical choices.

CAPS member Chubberdog is correct that there's little competition for Intuitive Surgical's system, and despite the popularity the system enjoys among doctors, I don't expect the company to survive Obamacare at its current lofty valuation. Intuitive Surgical has a large following on CAPS (almost 3,800 members have rated it), but you can chime in by heading to the Intuitive Surgical CAPS page.

A chance for scary growth
It takes more than a few All-Star picks and a quick paragraph to make buy or sell decisions, so start your own research on these stocks on Motley Fool CAPS. You can 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. And while you're there, weigh in on whether you think these are tomorrow's monster stocks.