I lived through Hurricane Andrew in 1992. It was only the third Category 5 storm to make landfall in the United States in recorded history, and it was a doozy. I remember waiting for the deafening gusts to subside before venturing out to see the savage destruction that the killer storm had caused.
When it comes to windstorms, Category 5 is as intense as they get. When it comes to investing, growth stocks would be the market's equivalent.
Growth stocks are powerful, which can sometimes be a good thing. Find the right stock on the cusp of blowing apart the landscape, and you can go from being a modest investor to a rich one in the blink of a hurricane's eye. Think Cisco just as the networking specialist began to update companies with the routers necessary to stay connected. Imagine delving into IGT (NYSE:IGT) just as the slot-machine maker began to install progressive jackpot systems in the expanding casino market, or Panera (NASDAQ:PNRA) as it began to grow its chain of freshly baked eats.
By the same token, growth stocks are volatile. I saw it when I stepped outside my home in 1992. You can see it, too, in a portfolio ravaged by the wrong growth stocks. Planet Hollywood? 3DO? They both blew my portfolio to pieces way back when.
Bracing for the big one
Snapping up the right growth stocks is the aim of the Motley Fool Rule Breakers newsletter service. Every month, David Gardner leads a team of analysts in unearthing a couple of ultimate growth stock ideas. When he's right, Category 5 investing can be a thing of beauty. Five of the 24 recommendations from 2005 have gone on to more than double. Three have more than tripled in value! When he's wrong, the damage can be brutal. Nine of last year's picks are sporting double-digit losses.
The key to aggressive growth stock investing is to let your winners run. If you land that 10-bagger, it means that nine other similar investments can go to zero and you'll still have broken even.
Taking chances has led the service to single out some pretty eclectic -- if not outright eccentric -- companies. Universal Display (NASDAQ:PANL) has nearly doubled since being singled out two years ago. The developer of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) has been cashing in on the world's appetite for sharp-looking flat-panel displays. Stun-gun maker TASER (NASDAQ:TASR) is another intriguing storyteller. TASER may be trading below the originally recommended price, but the shares have nearly doubled off last summer's lows as new orders keep streaming in for its less lethal weaponry.
Earlier this year, the newsletter also landed a potential winner in IPG Photonics (NASDAQ:IPGP). The early adopter in optical fiber-based lasers seems to be in the right place at the right time, championing a product that is superior in productivity and operating costs than conventional lasers.
Buying into flashy displays, shocking weaponry, and fiber lasers can be risky. That's OK. Disruptive technology may not disrupt overnight, but when it does, the upticks can come in a hurry. It's better to be early -- like buying into Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) when it went public three years ago at $85 a share -- than late.
I'm fortunate enough to have been with The Motley Fool in the mid-1990s, when David was recommending the purchase of companies like America Online, PayPal, and Amazon.com. They seemed like radical investments at the time. AOL was battling it out in the cutthroat realm of dial-up online services. PayPal was battling established financial-services titans in the field of online micropayments. Amazon was trying to turn retail distribution upside down by shipping book orders placed online directly to the end user. AOL, PayPal, and online shopping took off, and so did David's real-money Rule Breakers portfolio.
Andrew, 15 years later
The storms keep coming. I still live in Miami, so I've had my share of windstorms come by in recent years. Two years ago, Katrina and Wilma came, and this year's season, starting in June, is forecast to be very active.
Last summer, I looked at investing styles and labeled them as hurricane categories:
- Category 1 took a peek at high-yielding investments.
- Category 2 emphasized value stocks.
- Category 3 approached the merits of a balanced portfolio.
- Category 4 explored small-cap stocks.
Wrapping things up with the most powerful -- and sometimes deadly -- basket of stocks makes sense. I'm part of the Rule Breakers team of analysts. I buy stocks in all shapes and flavors, though I'm always smitten by a good young growth stock with a great story to tell.
Oh, they do tell stories. It was easy to snuggle up to a company like Steiner, one of the earliest Rule Breakers recommendations. I made the pick after watching cruise industry trends evolve over the years. It was no longer an elderly crowd lining up for shuffleboard. The sector was attracting a younger, self-aware audience through a growing number of ports.
I don't mind the exotic. I don't fear Category 5 investing. I've seen David excel at it for nearly as long as I've been telling stories of how I made it through Hurricane Andrew.
Are you a Category 5 investor? If so, want to learn more about these powerful stocks? Give Rule Breakers a spin with a free 30-day pass to see if growth investing is right for you.
This article was originally published on July 21, 2006. It has been updated.
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz believes in taking chances to earn superior returns. He does not own shares in any of the stocks in this story. Amazon.com, eBay, and Time Warner are active Stock Advisor picks. The Fool has a disclosure policy.
