Wall Street's Best Hidden 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 analyst coverage, 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: Yahoo! Finance.

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

Hiding in plain sight
Once the rumor-mongering ends, a company is left with just the products or services it offers. If they're not enough to propel it to profitability, then investors can expect it to eventually collapse under its own weight.

Microvision has at times benefited from the rumors about whether its pico projectors will be included in the iPod or that Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) might even want to buy it. As those fell by the wayside, Microvision's stock fell with it. Fortunately, it does have its advanced display technology, so maybe resorting to a dilutive financing under which it issued more than 6.2 million shares will be enough to get it through to the big announcement.

Will that occur in gaming as opposed to consumer electronics gadgetry, as previously thought? Microvision has shown how its projectors can work with video games, but now it's working with game maker Capcom and chip maker Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) to develop a next-generation experience. The player would use a programmable gun to project an image and move it around, completely freeing the player from a TV or monitor.

To determine whether Microvision belongs in your portfolio, and to know how many similar businesses you already invest in, be sure to add it into the Fool's free portfolio tracker, My Watchlist.

All charged up
As the brouhaha over General Motors' new Chevy Volt attests, electric cars are racing to the forefront of consumer consciousness. If Tesla can bring an affordable version to market, it might win just more than a niche spot in the industry.

For a long time, GM touted the fact that the Volt was an all-electric car, its drive train unassisted by the onboard gasoline engine, whose only function -- we were led to believe -- was to recharge the batteries. The innovation -- GM said the Volt wasn't a hybrid, but a new kind of car, a "range-extended" vehicle -- would help it get the equivalent of 230 miles per gallon. It turns out that in certain circumstances, the gas engine does move the wheels, and car experts who have driven it say it gets more like 25 to 50 miles per gallon.

It's more of a fancy hybrid like the Toyota (NYSE: TM) Prius than a real electric vehicle like the Nissan Leaf.

With George Clooney and Leonard DiCaprio as customers, Tesla brings a little Hollywood cachet to its name. Now the company needs a broader-based model, or Tesla's stock, already down more than 10% from its hot-rod-hyped IPO last year, will fall further.

A utility player
If Generex Biotechnology has more trading days like it did on Monday, it wouldn't stay hidden much longer. The stock soared on the news that the company was buying a 51% stake in Global Medical Direct. That move should add $30 million to the top line and $8 million to the bottom line, but with a reverse stock split included and the company issuing common stock and warrants to current shareholders, things got a bit confusing and the stock dropped again.

CAPS member BlacknGold says the biopharmaceutical elicits a lot of investor emotion, but he sees more upside reward than downside risk. Its lead products are a spray insulin and a cancer treatment, but MannKind's (Nasdaq: MNKD) inhalable insulin might be approved this December, and Generex's cancer drug is slated for future development.

Let us know what you think on the Generex Biotechnology CAPS page.

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.