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. Just ask investors who hold shares of SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR), which on Tuesday fell more than 4% after a pair of executive appointments. Sheesh.

No matter. 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. Each week, we hunt for the next great multibagger. But unlike David Gardner and his team at Motley Fool 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 a 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

Amtech Systems (NASDAQ:ASYS)

231

98.7%

35.0%

Cogo Group (NASDAQ:COGO)

582

96.6%

26.3%

Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE:CMG-B)

758

97.4%

24.7%

Cutera (NASDAQ:CUTR)

145

94.5%

24.0%

GeoEye (NASDAQ:GEOY)

328

96.0%

20.0%

Sources: Motley Fool CAPS, 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 got some great companies to work with. Chipotle Mexican Grill has left holders of its A and B shares doubled over in pain after losing its lunch in July. The core business, however, remains very tasty, and I've built a position in the B shares for my wife's IRA.

As for the rest of our list? Amtech is building a backlog of solar orders. Cogo Group, which first made our list last year, is still seeing outsized earnings growth. Cutera is a five-star mover.

A GeoEye on your portfolio
But my favorite for today is Rule Breakers recommendation GeoEye, which sells satellite imagery to Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Microsoft, among others. The thesis behind the big upgrade the stock just received in CAPS depends on the launch of a new satellite this month, as All-Star investor PeakStocks explains here:

Although risky, I believe that GeoEye represents an amazing risk/reward scenario, especially in light of the fact that the success rate for launches of the type that GeoEye will use for GeoEye-1's launch is over 98.5%. Once that bird flies, GeoEye's earnings and revenue will rocket and the stock will never look back.

Agreed, but I'm more interested to know what you think. Would you buy GeoEye 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!