Wall Street's Best Unknown Stocks

When asked for the secret of his success, baseball player Wee Willie Keeler replied, "Hit 'em where they ain't." What worked for Willie at the plate applies equally well in investing.

Seeking stocks that others ignore, shun, or simply forget gives individual investors like you an edge over the professionals. When Wall Street turns a blind eye, you have a chance to get in before these stocks get discovered -- or rediscovered -- and start taking off.

Below, we'll check out companies with only a handful of analysts covering them, then pair our list with the opinions of the Motley Fool CAPS community. A stock that garners CAPS' top ratings, but hasn't yet caught analysts' attention, could be your next home run investment.

Source: Zacks.com, Yahoo! Finance, Motley Fool CAPS.

Remember, without analyst support, you'll have to do your own scouting to see whether these stocks deserve a spot on your portfolio's roster. Don't buy or sell them based solely on their appearance here.

A utility player
Stronger than expected fourth-quarter results helped ClickSoftware recover lost ground, after the workforce optimization specialist had prepped the market for the likelihood of no sequential revenue growth. With the company's first-quarter results due at the end of the month, analysts expect a 25% jump in sales over the year-ago period. That might not be a bad guess.

Management aims for full-year growth of as much as 22%, based on the strength of its growing sales pipeline and backlog. Tech spending also seems to be on the upswing. Rival Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) recently issued a strong sales forecast, predicting that new software licenses will increase between 3% and 13%. That's a pretty wide range, but it's still Oracle's rosiest forecast in almost two years.

At just 17 times forward earnings estimates, ClickSoftware is priced higher than Oracle. But with better growth prospects than its larger rival, it looks like a more attractive investment candidate. ClickSoftware has made several acquisitions over the past year, but at its valuation, it could make an attractive target itself. Certainly the strong balance sheet that CAPS member philthyTrades highlights would warrant a potential suitor's closer attention.

CAPS seems to agree that an optimal future awaits ClickSoftware. Some 98% of members rating the software maker expect it to outperform the market averages.

Dig, baby, dig!
As Goldcorp (NYSE: GG) has proven, the Red Lake district of Ontario is one of Canada's most prolific gold-producing regions. No wonder Big Bear Mining Co. is purchasing a 100% interest in two properties owned by Rubicon Minerals. According to Big Bear, since the 1960s the Red Lake district has yielded more than 30 million ounces of gold worth more than $20 billion in today's money. Goldcorp's Red Lake Mine alone produces roughly 600,000 ounces annually.

Rubicon has had considerable success of its own at its Phoenix gold project -- CAPS member akenst says its updates are actually a joy to read because of the new discoveries Rubicon makes -- and continues to expand its drilling operations.

You can mine the gold digger for all it's worth on the Rubicon Minerals CAPS page, where more than 500 members have already found nuggets worth keeping.

Ringing up profit
With the Chinese government supporting the upgrade of wireless technology in the country, telecom equipment manufacturer Telestone Technologies saw a 57% surge in profit in the fourth quarter, as revenue more than doubled. The "Big Three" Chinese carriers -- China Mobile (NYSE: CHL), China Unicom (NYSE: CHU), and China Telecom -- all expanded their 3G network to new areas using Telestone's equipment.

All-Star CAPS member TSIF admits there are risks attached to the equipment maker -- opaque accounting, currency issues, the Chinese government -- but overall finds the growth prospects compelling:

The very small float of 6.4 Million shares will keep Telestone volitile, but Telestone remains of interest to global and small cap funds. Cash on hand is minimal for this small cap, but greater than debt. Rumors of a secondary seem to have depressed it even further, but an increase in the float, if it occurs, would help with the volitility.

Swing for the fences
When seeking investments where no one else is looking, Motley Fool CAPS is the best place to start your own research. 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.

Sign up today for the completely free service, and tell us whether these hidden stock opportunities will help us go one up on Wall Street.