Every day, the sun rises on Wall Street, and a plethora of professional analysts wake to issue new opinions on stocks. Here at the Fool, we use our "This Just In" column to examine some of these picks -- and the track records of the firms behind them -- so individuals can make better investing decisions.

Anyone can also use Motley Fool CAPS to monitor the collective opinions of more than 135,000 members, many of whom demonstrate better investing insight than published analysts.

Enough top-performing CAPS members have turned bullish on Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) recently to upgrade it from the three-star rank it has held for most of the past year to a more formidable four stars. A total of 544 members have given their opinion on Illumina, with many of them offering analysis and commentary explaining the recent optimism.

While Sequenom (NASDAQ:SQNM) tries to recover from its free fall, genetic analysis systems and products maker Illumina kept at what it does best and followed up a strong fourth quarter with a solid first quarter. It had a 36% year-over-year rise in revenue, to $165.8 million, leading to a 76% increase in earnings, showing the continued demand for its products -- and subsequently its stock.                                                                           

Similar to how Procter & Gamble's (NYSE:PG) Gillette razors lead to sales of replacement blades and how Intuitive Surgical's (NASDAQ:ISRG) da Vinci machines lead to recurring scalpel sales, a growing installed base of Illumina's Genome Analyzers helped significantly increase sales of its sequencing consumables in the quarter.

This helped the company pull in $38 million in free cash flow for the quarter, leaving it with a sizable hoard of $351 million in cash and equivalents and another $321 million in short-term investments.

The company's results outshone those of smaller competitor Luminex (NASDAQ:LMNX). And -- even with a high multiple -- CAPS members favor Illumina over its competitor and legal adversary Affymetrix (NASDAQ:AFFX).

Some investors anticipate the company will benefit from stimulus funds allocated to the NIH over the next couple of years. The company has already begun working with customers to help them acquire new grants and funding that will be available.

To see what the very best CAPS analysts are saying now about Illumina -- as well as other winning stocks they are picking -- head on over to CAPS and have a look.

More Foolishness: