Aruba Networks Is a Bottle Rocket

There's a school of thinking that sees more promise in superior gains than in digging up great starting prices, even if you seem to be overpaying for that bottle rocket. Richard Driehaus, the godfather of momentum investing, takes exception to buying low and selling high: "I believe that far more money is made buying high and selling at even higher prices." And our Rule Breakers analysts would agree with that: momentum-like criteria show up twice in the six pillars of that newsletter's strategy.

Price momentum may not be a traditional marker of a strong business or a capable management team, but when you think about it, those qualities should eventually generate strong returns. This is just a slightly backwards way of looking at the numbers, throwing "cause" and "effect" into the same basket to find a starting point for more research.

So what kind of bottle rockets can we find today? I took that question to our CAPS screener, looking for stocks that have at least doubles from 52-week lows and are still within 10% of yearly highs.

One stock that caught my eye among the resulting 127 tickers today is Aruba Networks (Nasdaq: ARUN). If you bought shares a year ago, you're sitting on a double today. It's been nothing but blue skies ahead since hitting rock bottom at the end of 2008, and the stock looks set to explore new highs -- again and again.

Here's how Aruba's gains stack up against some direct rivals over the last year:

Source: Motley Fool CAPS.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results, and you should always do more research after finding a promising stock by screening. In this case, Aruba's secure networks for enterprise installations are sitting in a sweet market spot right now, and I'm not surprised to see the stock repeatedly breaking new 52-week highs.

I think it's telling that both Google and Microsoft have installed Aruba networks in some of their corporate facilities. When you want a proven solution for wireless networking with both a complete feature set and top-notch security management, Aruba is the place to be. Do you see demand for that kind of networking dropping off any time soon? Me neither.

Buy now or forever hold your peace: This bottle rocket still has plenty of dry powder left in its growth engines.