Tomorrow's Monster Stocks

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 over the past decade. These aren't penny stocks; they're viable companies with sound prospects, achieving phenomenal returns every year. 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'll enlist the more than 130,000 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.

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 research of extreme buying opportunities.

In search of Bigfoot
According to credit reporting bureau TransUnion, bank card delinquencies increased in the fourth quarter both as a national average and in most areas of the country. While it views the situation as moderating to a certain extent, TransUnion also notes that its forecasting models for the national 90-day delinquency rate suggests credit-card delinquencies will continue to rise in 2009. An individual credit card holder has on average $5,729 in debt on their credit cards, up 0.33% from the previous quarter's $5,710, and 2% higher compared with the fourth quarter of 2007, when $5,619 was the outstanding balance.

That seems to coincide with the data from American Express that showed that the number of its cardholders who were 30 days past due continued to rise, although at a far less steep rate than earlier in 2008. In December, it reported that its "roll rate" -- the percentage of cardholders who go from being delinquent on their payments to not paying them at all -- had risen to 47% from 35% the year before. The roll rates at Capital One Financial (NYSE:COF) rose to 34% from 28% in the year-ago period.

Both institutions sought to expand their customer base to blunt the impact of the rising delinquencies. American Express became a bank holding company to gain access to tax dollars through the TARP program, while Capital One bought Chevy Chase Bank after it received TARP funding.

CAPS All-Star kcanant thinks that Warren Buffett gave American Express a ringing endorsement recently when he said it was a "hell of a buy" at $10 a share -- and he usually doesn't make specific recommendations.

Uncle Warren says: American Express, for example, you know, it's very clear that American Express' losses in 2009 on their receivables will be, you know, considerably higher than last year. And their earnings will suffer to some degree accordingly. But that doesn't mean that American Express isn't a hell of a buy at $10. American Express is going to be around forever. They've got the cream of cardholders

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 with your own thoughts on whether you think these are tomorrow's monster stocks.