America's Next Top Growth Stock

Growth stocks are the beauties of the stock world, plain and simple. They're exciting, they have good stories, and they can make you a lot of money.

But for all their beauty, growth stocks are also the prima donnas of the market. They can be erratic, they don't always live up to their billing, and they tend to attract a shareholder base that's ready and willing to run at the first signs of slowdown. For those reasons, caution is certainly in order when you enter the world of growth investing.

Fortunately, The Motley Fool's CAPS service brings us the collective intelligence of a community of more than 170,000 investors and is a great resource for separating the Jessica Albas from the Jabba the Hutts. Each of the stocks competing for this week's top spot has a market cap of at least $100 million and grew its earnings per share by an average of 15% or more per year over the past three years. So let's go ahead and meet our contestants.

Source: Yahoo! Finance, Capital IQ (a Standard and Poor's company) and CAPS as of Sept. 15.

Growth without good looks
Despite scorching growth, Baidu can't seem to catch a break on CAPS and score an upper-tier rating. Why? It's very simple: valuation. Investors are currently paying a huge price for Baidu and many CAPS members are concerned that it's simply too high -- blazing growth or not.

Not everyone is rushing to give the thumbs-down on Baidu, though. Fellow Fool Tim Beyers thinks the growth does justify the price, while Fool Tim Hanson -- though he thinks the stock is likely overvalued -- is worried that short-sellers could get slammed.

Meanwhile, in movie world, Netflix is waging war on the cutting edge of entertainment. The company that pioneered delivering movies through the mail is now trying to become the name in online movie streaming. But it's not going to be easy to keep the lead.

Netflix may now be streaming on Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhones and iPads, but Apple already sells digital movies on iTunes and I wouldn't count out Jobs & Co. when it comes to a huge market like this. But Apple is hardly the only potential source of competition, as Amazon has its own on-demand offering and small-but-dangerous players like Hulu could angle their way in as well.

Of course, competition may not even be investors' biggest concern right now. Like Baidu, Netflix's stock carries a hefty valuation -- even when you look at it on a more attractive cash-flow basis. As a result, many cynical CAPS members have repeated a simple, one-word mantra: "overpriced."

I'm very much on board with STEC's uninspiring three-star rating. I can't say that I feel overly bearish about STEC, particularly considering its low valuation. However, I'm not excited about the stock, either. The company dukes it out in the cyclical, highly competitive, largely commoditized memory industry where it has to line up against tough competitors like SanDisk (Nasdaq: SNDK).

In other words, I'm not pounding the table to short STEC, but I'm not lining up to invest either.

Strutting their stuff
While the stocks above haven't been able to sufficiently inspire CAPS members, Motley Fool Global Gains pick Cellcom Israel has.

It doesn't take an equity-market super-sleuth to figure out why CAPS members might like Cellcom. The company has been steadily growing, it has a single-digit price-to-earnings ratio, and it's paying a mouth-watering, double-digit dividend.

But if that's all so easy to see, why is the stock down since earlier this year? To start with, there are concerns about where new growth comes from as Israel already has one of the highest mobile-phone penetration rates in the world.

What's more worrisome, though, is the recent decision by Israel's communications minister to cut the amount carriers can charge each other to connect calls by a whopping 80%. Cellcom said simply that the cuts would have "material adverse effect on the company's results."

So why stick around? It looks like Mr. Market may have overdone it on the downside. The fee cuts will hurt, but they certainly won't imperil the company. The dividend may need to be cut, but it will still likely be on the hefty side.

But while Cellcom Israel may have piqued CAPS members' interest, it couldn't quite top uranium kingpin Cameco for this week's top spot.

Cameco lives at the intersection of a number of trends that have been attracting investors like iron fillings to a neodymium magnet. There's the fact that it harvests a physical commodity -- which can be a hedge to ailing paper currencies. There's the potential that China's growth will cause it to turn to nuclear power. And there's the push for "clean energy," which could bring a renewed interest in nuclear in other parts of the world, including the U.S.

Put these all together and it's no wonder why CAPS members think there could be opportunity in Cameco's shares.

Now go vote!
Do you think Cameco has what it takes to be America's next top growth stock? Head over to CAPS and let the rest of the 170,000-member community know what you think.

These high growers may be dangerous to short, but that doesn't mean that you should forget about shorting altogether.