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.

Source: Motley Fool CAPS. Score is how many percentage points 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, sell. Just consider them starting points for your own further research of extreme buying opportunities.

In search of Bigfoot
It's not so surprising that First Majestic Silver posted some incredibly strong earnings the other day, as the bull-run in silver prices helped fuel profits that increased to almost $24 million from a breakeven point a year ago. With total cash costs of just $8.62 per ounce, silver trading at $50 an ounce -- or even $30 -- makes for a pretty profitable picture.

Of course, if precious metals continue to decline, it might not be surprising to see profits decline sequentially next quarter, though they might still be up substantially from the year ago period. First Majestic also said that its cash costs increased 8% from last year, due to a strong Mexican peso and higher energy inputs. That puts First Majestic in a less attractive position than, say, Endeavor Silver (NYSE: EXK), which also benefited from rising silver prices but expects cash costs to continue declining to the mid-$5 range. Earlier this year, Coeur D'Alene Mines (NYSE: CDE) reported it was able to contain its costs at around the $7 level.

CAPS member njmiles03 isn't too concerned, saying that as long as silver remains above $30 an ounce, miners like First Majestic will remain solid investments.

My thesis is that silver will not remain below $30/oz for long in the coming months, if at all, and that volatility will continue. I would not encourage anyone to invest in silver itself in this environment. However, young primary silver miners are something else completely. As long as the price of silver remains safely above production costs, silver mines have incentive to reopen, and exploration companies are motivated to look for new potential mineable areas.

Dig into the bull thesis on the First Majestic Silver CAPS page and let us your take on silver's future.

Forgive and forget?
Along with many investors and analysts, I was caught by surprise by MIPS Technologies' disappointing quarterly report last month. MIPS failed to meet expectations despite management's assurances the previous quarter that there were big doings afoot. One time before, I had invested in another company that kept saying "wait 'til next quarter," and only when it was too late did I realize that what management was really good at was gaming the expectations system.

Yet as I pointed out, MIPS biggest customer, Broadcom (Nasdaq: BRCM), also had a less-than-stellar quarter. So I'm willing to give management the benefit of the doubt just one more time, though MIPS CEO Sandeep Vij's suggesting the company was in a "marathon" might mean a turnaround is still some miles down the road. The old saying "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" still applies.

With 92% of the CAPS members rating MIPS to outperform the broad market average, it appears I'm not the only one willing to give it a second chance. But you can follow along by adding it to your watchlist and see if we were right to forgive, if not forget.

A bright idea
Is Warren Buffett losing it in his dotage? The Fool's Rich Smith doesn't go so far as to suggest senility setting in on the Oracle of Omaha, but he lays out a pretty good case for why Buffett should have bought Visa instead of the big slug of MasterCard (NYSE: MA) stock he added to his portfolio.

On the surface, MasterCard offers attractive valuations -- and it probably is a very good investment. But because Visa has a proven knack for generating excessive gobs of free cash flow, it would have been an even better investment.

For his part, CAPS member smelllilacs is willing to bet big on Visa because the transactions from which it generates all that cash isn't going to be diminished in the future.

Plastic card usage is rapidly overtaking check transactions. I rarely see anyone write a check at a retailer anymore. In addition, like many of my family and friends, I auto pay many bills using my debit or credit card. Transactions are going to keep growing and VISA has a front seat to this marketplace!

Tell us on the Visa CAPS page whether you think Buffett botched it or was the smooth operator he's always been.

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 marvel at the range of opinions there.