Ah, skepticism, how I love thee.

We rebel investors at Motley Fool Rule Breakers believe the multibaggers in the making, while not often cheap by the numbers, are always misunderstood. As such, they face extraordinary skepticism, which, in turn, makes them excellent value stocks.

More are out there. Each week, right here in this column, we hunt them down. Grab your keyboard.

What one stock can do for you
Really, it's worth your time. One home run stock can make all the difference to your portfolio.

Just ask David Gardner, captain of the good pirate ship Rule Breakers, who bought Amazon at a split adjusted price of $3.24 a share in 1997. He's up more than 2,600% since.

That helped him overcome stinging losses from Sirius Satellite Radio, 3Dfx, and others to put up nine years of better than 20% average annual returns as the leader of the real-money Rule Breaker portfolio.

Let the haters be your friends
David and his team still seek misunderstood growers. You can, too, with the help of our completely free-of-charge Motley Fool CAPS investor-intelligence database, which contains information on more than 5,000 stocks.

CAPS applies user input to rate stocks from one (low) to five (high) stars. Using CAPS, we're once again searching for one- and two-star stocks that have at least 5% of their available shares sold short but are expected to grow their earnings by no less than 15% over each of the next five years.

Let's have the list
Now, with that preamble behind us, here are five unloved growth stocks:

Company

CAPS Rating

Short Interest

5-Year Growth Estimate

Applied Micro Circuits (NASDAQ:AMCC)

**

8.80%

20.0%

NetLogic Microsystems (NASDAQ:NETL)

**

35.30%

18.6%

Greenhill & Co. (NYSE:GHL)

**

30.40%

17.3%

CompuCredit (NASDAQ:CCRT)

**

34.20%

15.9%

Ariba (NASDAQ:ARBA)

**

12.5%

15.0%
Sources: Motley Fool CAPS, Yahoo! Finance

Bear in mind that this isn't a list of recommendations; I offer these stocks as candidates for further research. But of the five it's investment bank Greenhill that interests me most.

My thesis is pretty basic. For as much as the market turmoil has some panicking, investment banking remains an essential economic service. Witness Greenhill's blockbuster second quarter.

Surely some investors believe this was an anomaly. But as fellow Fool Matt Koppenheffer points out, Greenhill has a pretty rich pipeline of deals:

The firm is the sole advisor to IHOP in its recently announced plans to buy Applebee's (NASDAQ:APPB) and to Ceridian (NYSE:CEN) in its proposed sale to TH Lee Partners and Fidelity National. The firm also has a part in two massive pending transactions: the deals for ABN Amro and BCE.

Intrigued? Do your own due diligence and then check in with thousands of other investors at CAPS. If you'd like, add your own commentary. You'll be helping your fellow Fools and testing your ideas at the same time. Click here to get started now; the service is 100% free.

See you back here next week for five more unloved growth stocks.