High-Priced Stocks Worth Every Penny

Penny stocks are one way to double your money, though it's fraught with risk, but there are equally shiny opportunities trading at the other end of the price spectrum, too. I call 'em "three-digit stocks," yet if they're anything like Berkshire Hathaway, they can trade in the four-, five-, and six-digit range, too.

A penny stock might not be a good buy simply because it's cheap, and a three-digit stock shouldn't scare you away just because it carries a hefty price tag. Handsome is as handsome does. Let's check in with the Motley Fool CAPS community to see which of the high-priced stocks below earn the greatest confidence from our investor-intelligence database:

Source: CapitalIQ, a division of Standard & Poor's; Motley Fool CAPS.

But just because these stocks are purring is no reason to jump into them blindly. Catching a tiger by the tail -- or a knife falling from on high -- can end up leaving you scratched and bleeding. That's why we recommend you use this list as a launchpad for your own research and analysis.

Highfalutin' honeys
Having left the field of the OLED industry to Universal Display (Nasdaq: PANL), LG Display, and Samsung, Kyocera has increasingly focused on the solar module sector to its benefit. Sales in the segment, its second largest behind consumer electronics, grew almost 14% as demand in Japan and elsewhere surged. Despite an appreciating yen, Japan was a stronghold of growth with consolidated sales in the country surging 41% in the first half of fiscal 2011. That, in turn, led Kyocera to boost guidance for the full year.

The diversified electronics firm is not a household name just yet, and only a few analysts cover the stock. CAPS members though are cueing in to its potential, and where more than 95% of those rating Kyocera expect it to outperform the broad market averages, all but one All-Star member think it will outshine the market.

You can add it to your watchlist and have all the Foolish news and analysis compiled for you in a single place for review.

Not so rough
Don't lump New Oriental Education in the same boat as the beleaguered U.S.-based for-profit education players like Apollo Group (Nasdaq: APOL) and Corinthian Colleges (Nasdaq: COCO). They primarily offer adults professional degrees while New Oriental targets Chinese youth for English-language training and standardized prep test. In that respect, it might be more comparable to Princeton Review (Nasdaq: REVU) or Kaplan.

At 50 times trailing earnings and 35 times forward estimates, it's not exactly cheap. Peer ChinaCast Education, for example, goes for about half those values and based on its growth prospects presents a more attractive opportunity. Nearly one-quarter of the All-Star CAPS members rating New Oriental Education believe it will underperform the broad market averages, perhaps thinking the stock has gotten ahead of itself. You can let us know in the comments section below or on the New Oriental Education CAPS page whether this company will go to the head of the class.

Triple-digit titans
Where companies like Bristow Group, which provides helicopter transport services to the oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico, were savaged by the oil spill, Seacor Holdings benefited from the deployment of additional vessels to support the spill response effort. Profits in the sector surged 62%, though transportation services reported wide losses as its Seabulk America vessel was laid up because of market conditions.

Wall Street is unanimous in its opinion that Seacor will outperform the market, and the CAPS community is generally bullish as well, but you can add Seacor in the Fool's free portfolio tracker, and add your opinion on Seacor Holdings CAPS page, too.

Count to 10
These three-digit stocks might be on their way to even higher valuations. That's why it pays to start your own research in Motley Fool CAPS. 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.