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 firms can help you establish a winning portfolio.

Stalking the monster
To find tomorrow's winners, we've enlisted the help of more than 170,000 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 the number of 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, to sell. Just consider them starting points for your own further research of extreme buying opportunities.

In search of Bigfoot
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, or so they say. But since not much is going on anymore in Sin City, not even Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) wants to be associated with it, and is considering dropping the city's name from its own. Rebranding seems to be the thing to do in casinos; MGM Resorts changed its name from MGM Mirage earlier this year, and Wynn Resorts (Nasdaq: WYNN) wants to move its headquarters out of Las Vegas altogether, as if any of that will help lure more gamblers into their casinos.

Of course, Las Vegas represents a dwindling portion of these gaming houses' total revenues anyway. They've found the climes of Macau more hospitable, and the gamblers there more willing to part with their cash. Wynn generates almost two-thirds of its revenues from Macau while Sands gets 70% from the China-controlled island. Only MGM doesn't have a significant presence there, only relying upon its 50% joint venture in the MGM Grand Macau to eke out an existence. That might explain why it's ailing more than the rest.

MannKind has been ailing, too, as it awaits FDA action on its inhaled insulin therapy Afrezza. It was forced to enter into a debt-for-equity swap. That might seem a positive move on some levels, but it will prove risky for MannKind's health if it can't get its drug-delivery system approved. And entering into a deal with Bank of America to allow MannKind's debt purchasers to hedge their investments by shorting the stock is hardly a ringing endorsement.

Investors remain generally bullish about MannKind's opportunity, though, with only 20% of CAPS members rating the biopharmaceutical to underperform the broad market averages. But you can grab the bull by the horns on the MannKind CAPS page, and let us know whether Afrezza will be a breath of fresh air. You can also add MannKind to your My Watchlist, to automatically aggregate all of our Foolish analysis on this stock.

A good reception
Investors in stem-cell researchers Geron, StemCells (Nasdaq: STEM), and Cytori Therapeutics (Nasdaq: CYTX) were disappointed when a judge temporarily blocked President Obama's expansion of the privately funded stem cell lines that federally funded scientists could research, ruling that it might be against federal guidelines.

But unlike Geron, neither StemCells nor Cytori engage in embryonic research, which was the focus of the judge's order. Thus, they had the potential to recover much faster from the ruling. Yet an appeals court judge imposed an injunction on the judge's order, at least temporarily, after the Justice Department said it would disrupt research, perhaps irreparably.

Although Geron's stock is up 6% since the halt to the ruling was imposed last week, the company and the industry remain in limbo until a permanent decision is reached. The original judge said Congress was free to go back and change the law if it wished, be he did not have the discretion to do so in his ruling.

Thus, it may take an act of Congress for Geron to be able to move freely again. CAPS member Groovatorium hopes it happens soon, since the stem-cell researcher has some heavy artillery it's looking to bring out in the fight against disease:

Geron has a stem cell line that uses two 'big guns' against cancer that are unmatched in the current biopharm market. First: they have a number of products in their pipeline that specifically target telemorase, an enzyme that keeps cancer cells alive indefinitely. Second: they have been granted permission to conduct the first human-based trial of stem cell therapy to introduce oligodendrocytes, a concept that has the possibility to restore function to patients with previously paralyzing spinal cord lacerations. 

Add Geron to your My Watchlist page, and you'll receive all our Foolish news and analysis on the company.

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 and find other opportunities with monster potential.

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