Wall Street's Best Hidden Stocks

Editor's note: A previous version of this story mixed up the stock symbols for Ivanhoe Energy and Ivanhoe Mines. We regret the error.

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; Motley Fool CAPS.

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

Hiding in plain sight
Investors exhibiting unrealistic expectations for rare earth metals are bidding up shares of stocks that have no business rising so high. China Shen Zhou Mining & Resources (NYSE: SHZ) and China GenSheng Minerals were two that had little more than China and mining in common with rare earth minerals, but were bid up to stratospheric heights.

You can lump General Moly in with that crowd, too. With interests in two molybdenum and copper mines in Nevada, it also has little claim to any sort of relationship to the debate going on about China restricting rare earth exports. Since it won't actually start production til, maybe, 2013 (by its own projections) it's folly to expect it to reap any rewards from the current dustup. The run-up in its shares should have its stock tumbling down soon.

With 96% of CAPS members rating General Moly to outperform the broad market averages, there's apparently more belief that molybdenum and copper will be more valuable metals to be mining in the future. You can add General Moly to your watchlist and have all the Foolish news and analysis aggregated for you in one place.

Still revved up?
If the rumors are true that Ivanhoe Mines will cleave off all its assets other than its Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in Mongolia, then its $1.2 billion rights offering to fund the first stages of development there are right in line with that thinking.

Analysts anticipate that due to a standstill agreement in place until 2012, Ivanhoe's largest shareholder Rio Tinto won't be able to acquire majority control, though it is expected to raise its stake to about 42%. It is suspected that CEO Robert Friedland wants to make sure Ivanhoe is acquired at a good price and that it isn't simply gobbled up by Rio when the agreement ends.

That means Ivanhoe might be in play for Rio's rivals BHP Billiton or Xstrata. However, if the business goes on sale, Rio is allowed to make its own competing bid. A twist, though, could also have Rio's biggest shareholder, Chinalco making a move as well. The Oyu Tolgoi mine is one the world's biggest undeveloped sources for copper and gold, so it is a rich resource that would naturally have a lot of eager bidders.

Let us know on the Ivanhoe Mines CAPS page whether the miner will be able to tap this opportunity for a bigger price tag.

Evidence of a turnaround
Stun-gun maker Taser has a knack for generating large orders around the end of one year and the start of the next, perhaps as a result of state and local governments spending tax dollars that remain in their coffers. It just recorded a sale of 1,000 devices for Arizona's Department of Public Safety that will boost fourth-quarter sales to about $22 million in total.

Yet it's also branching out into areas it calls "family safety," including its Protector text monitoring service and a new project called Evidence.com. I've previously expressed some reservations about the texting service, though its ability to lock down a phone while a car is in motion could prove popular with parents wanting to prevent their kids from engaging in dangerous distracted driving.

I'm also doubtful about the ability of Evidence.com to take off. It consists of a "head cam" worn by a police officer that would record interactions with the public and upload the video to the Evidence.com website. While the system might work in routine situations, the rough-and-tumble world of policing is going to subject these devices to damage. In a time when state and local budgets are severely crimped, this doesn't seem like something that will catch on any time soon.

But the stun gun remains the bread-and-butter at Taser, and CAPS member HDTVBG believes the less-than-lethal device will continue to find a market:

On the one hand, Tasers are much less lethal than bullets. On the other hand, lawyers gone wild see any attempt to subdue the bad behavior of our growing criminal class thugocracy as an opportunity to ring the register at shareholder expense. As the liberalization of media and unbridled narcissism engulfs the world in a coarsening lack of civility, peace officers will increasingly require new tools to force compliance and maintain order.

Search out additional opinions on the Taser CAPS page and let us know whether there's any evidence that its new business lines will protect shareholder value.

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.