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.

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
When it comes to bad news for Neutral Tandem, it seems as if it's in for a penny, it's in for a pound. Patent troubles, analyst downgrades, competitive pressure from Level 3 Communications (Nasdaq: LVLT), and rumors about possible consolidation among some big customers (T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) have left the stock trading at half the price it was last August.

Maybe it's a great time to buy. Neutral Tandem has bounced up a little from its 52-week lows, suggesting the market has priced all the worry and woe into it. When the company announces earnings next week, analysts are still expecting a 15% increase in profits on a 19% increase in revenues. Providing network interconnection services to wireless, wireline, cable, and VoIP carriers will remain a competitive field with plenty of room for Neutral Tandem. AT&T (NYSE: T) -- another of its top customers -- and Verizon (NYSE: VZ), which it has competed with on occasion, both use its equipment.

CAPS member jamiemcsteal says Neutral Tandem has spread its net wide enough that it will survive this.

Their competitive advantage is their network effect. They serve 176 major markets in the US, which none of their competitors boast. They completely own their network and they have a strong balance sheet. If you look at their performance in the past, it's pretty dreary until 2006, when things start exploding. That's the year when they connected all their networks to each other, creating their network. Their growth is extremely impressive after that.

A deep breath
It's harder to think the macro and competitive forces that are lined up against solar power shop Canadian Solar will be just as easily overcome. Management announced last week that it expects to record an $18 million to $20 million charge for currency exchange losses, while margins will come in lower than it had forecast. Canadian Solar and the rest of the industry are coming up against financially strapped governments that are looking for ways to rein in excessive industry subsidies. Several European countries are cutting back their subsidies; they're having enough trouble dealing with Greece, too.

The CAPS community certainly has a sunny disposition when it comes to Canadian Solar, though. Just over 1,000, or 87%, of the more than 1,150 members rating it pick it to outperform the broad market average. Join them on the Canadian Solar CAPS page and share your opinion.

A nice tailwind
Sometimes one plus one doesn't equal two. That seems to be the consensus among analysts viewing the proposed $1.6 billion merger between Mirant and RRI Energy. While the new company -- to be called GenOn Energy -- would be the second-largest independent U.S. power producer, having about 24,700 megawatts of electric-generating capacity and a better than $3.1 billion market value, the companies are viewed as having combined from positions of weakness. Short of a full-on recovery of the power generation sector, there seems to be little catalyst for much growth.

The CAPS community would disagree, with 94% of the members rating Mirant and RRI Energy believing they'll score gains over the market. Together they just might generate even more interest.

A chance for scary growth
It takes more than a few All-Star picks and a quick pitch to make buy or sell decisions, so start your own research on these stocks on Motley Fool CAPS.