Tomorrow's Monster Stocks

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 over the past decade. These aren't penny stocks; they're viable companies with sound prospects, achieving phenomenal returns every year. Finding just one or two of these monstrously successful companies can help you establish a winning portfolio.

Stalking the monster
To help us find tomorrow's big winners, we'll enlist the more than 130,000 trackers at Motley Fool CAPS. We've compiled a list of the most successful CAPS members, dubbed All-Stars because they have made picks that have doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled in price. Then we've selected some of the latest stocks they've found equally promising:

Of course, this is not a list of stocks to buy -- or, for those monster stocks that our CAPS All-Stars have already found, to sell. Just consider them starting points for your own research on extreme buying opportunities.

In search of Bigfoot
Trial lawyers are nothing if not predictable. Thus, when Sequenom announced that the data for its prenatal Down syndrome test couldn't be relied on any longer because of improper actions by employees, causing shares to plummet 75%, observers expected that lawsuits would be filed en masse. The lawyers haven't disappointed.

Shareholders might be sitting on some pretty steep losses right now, having believed -- as everyone else did -- that Sequenom's test was valid, and that it had huge potential for growth once it was released this summer. But the market may have overreacted.

Sequenom's management has indicated that it still believes in the SEQureDx test, but it's not going to release it until two large independent clinical tests are completed, which might not be until the first half of 2010. Those tests could end up confirming the accuracy of the SEQureDx, a test that was seen as just as effective as amniocentesis, but without the risks. The company, once unloved, became a star but is once again suffering from don't-want-itis.

CAPS All-Star member JakilaTheHun admits choosing Sequenom may be questionable, but also says management may be vindicated.

This is a somewhat speculative pick. I believe the market has overreacted to the revelation that Sequenom's Down Syndrome test had flaws due to employee mishandling of data. The stock was worth $15 before that and even that might have been low. Investors regularly overreact to news in the biotech sector and I believe that to be the case here as well. The only thing that gives me pause, however, is that Sequenom's cash situation is not all that great and they are going [to] need more of it at some point. Even if the market is overreacting, that doesn't change the fact that [Sequenom] needs "the market" to sustain itself. We'll see how this plays out, but I'll take a gamble on the long side because risk-reward greatly favors that side.

A chance for scary growth
It takes more than a few All-Star picks and a quick paragraph to make buy or sell decisions, so start your own research on these stocks on Motley Fool CAPS. 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. And while you're there, weigh in with your own thoughts on whether you think these are tomorrow's monster stocks.