Are you really a growth investor?

It's worth asking. Fast-moving tech stocks have taken a beating recently, leading to a slew of bargains for those with the guts to buy.

No surprises there. Market panics occur daily. Just ask investors who hold shares of Motley Fool Stock Advisor selection Omniture (NASDAQ:OMTR), which yesterday fell more than 5% on no news whatsoever. Sheesh.

That's why all-star investors bet on growth over the very long term. They know that:

  1. Businesses that make investors billions always begin as growth stocks.
  2. The best of them feature massive and identifiable competitive advantages.
  3. Growth as a strategy has the capacity to deliver 20% or greater annual returns for decades at a time.

How we do it
Of course, not all growth stocks will do. Our weekly hunt is for the next great multibagger. But unlike David Gardner and his team at Rule Breakers, who scour everything from financial statements to trade magazines to clinical reports in their research, we're going to rely on our Motley Fool CAPS investor-intelligence database.

Specifically, we're looking for stocks that have earned the highest five-star rating in CAPS and which are expected to grow their earnings by at least 20% annually over the next five years. Five-star stocks are those that the community, on the whole, believes will outperform the S&P 500.

Let's have the list
Now, with that preamble behind us, here are five more top growth stocks:

Company

No. of CAPS Ratings

Percent Bulls

5-Year Growth Estimate

CTC Media (NASDAQ:CTCM)

*****

93.5%

28.4%

China Mobile (NYSE:CHL)

*****

96.9%

26.6%

Central European Dist. (NASDAQ:CEDC)

*****

97.3%

24%

ICICI Bank (NYSE:IBN)

*****

96.5%

24%

NYSE Euronext (NYSE:NYX)

*****

96.8%

21.4%

Sources: Motley Fool CAPS as of July 31; Yahoo! Finance.

Bear in mind that this isn't a list of recommendations. Instead, I offer these stocks as candidates for further research.

We've some great companies to work with. ICICI is among India's leading banks, and for my money, it’s the best stock on the subcontinent. China Mobile, meanwhile, appears most likely to bring the iPhone to its home country.

An exchange for returns
Even so, I especially like Rule Breakers recommendation NYSE Euronext -- and not just because I contribute to that service. This potential "deathbed" stock had produced a 19% return on invested capital through March, more than triple the 6% that peer Nasdaq OMX Group (NASDAQ:NDAQ) returned over the same period.

Better still: NYSE Euronext's growth opportunity is global. "The NYSE Group and Euronext creates a holding company that opperates a liquid exchange group offering a diverse array of financial products and services. Six cash equities exchanges in five countries ... Call me crazy, but this one just got started," wrote CAPS investor 21popsontop in pitching the stock last March. "This is kind of like owning the worlds stock exchange, before it gets the globe in its pocket."

An overstatement? Perhaps. But lesser growers have been known to trade for far more than the 16 times earnings that NYSE Euronext commands. To me, those numbers scream "Bargain!"

But I'm more interested to know what you think. Would you buy NYSE Euronext at today's prices? Let us know by signing up for CAPS today. It's 100% free to participate.

See you back here next week with five more top growth stocks. Fool on!