Great Call on AIG! What's Next?

What can we do with you, AIG (NYSE:AIG)?

Your financial products group completely blew it by betting the house on derivatives and failing miserably. You're now practically an arm of the U.S. government. You're running through CEOs the way Britney Spears goes through boyfriends. Yet your stock has more than tripled from the low it hit in March.

Can you survive? More specifically, can you survive as a public company? And if you do, is your stock worth buying?

A total of 2,726 members of The Motley Fool's CAPS community have weighed in with their thoughts on AIG. The ratio of outperform to underperform ratings has left the stock rated a lowly two stars out of a possible five -- suggesting that it's better avoided than accumulated. However, some CAPS members have scored big by betting against the tide, and in favor of AIG. This group includes cambridgecrusher, who scored over 150 points by giving the stock a thumbs-up back in early July.

Cambridgecrusher is one of CAPS' All-Stars -- players with a rating of 80 or greater -- managing a stock-picking accuracy of 71% while racking up nearly 800 points. AIG isn't this player's only great call. Here's a look at a few other prescient picks:

Data from CAPS.

So what is this investor looking at these days? Here are a few of cambridgecrusher's most recent calls on CAPS:

Data from CAPS.

While not all of these picks may pan out, they could be a good place to start further research. I decided to take a closer look at Motley Fool Global Gains favorite Melco Crown.

Betting in the face of recession
Who in their right mind is heading out to the casinos, when nobody is sure that the world has pulled out of this recession yet? That question faces both the management teams and investors in gaming companies around the world.

At first, the belief was that Las Vegas would take the brunt of the hit to gaming, but more recent results have shown that many of the non-Vegas U.S. casinos, as well as the establishments based in China's Macau region, have gotten nailed by the recession.

So is there any reason we should think better of Melco Crown? Perhaps. For one thing, it is exclusively focused on Macau, which has the most growth potential of any of the major gaming destinations. It also has a better balance sheet than most other gaming companies around the world, and it recently bolstered that financial position with a share offering. And the company says its big new City of Dreams complex on the Cotai strip could be a game-changer.

On the other hand, Melco was unprofitable in the second quarter, and it will likely continue to face tough times. And the rest of the gaming world hasn't overlooked Macau's growth opportunity, as competitors flock to cash in.

CAPS members weigh in
Despite the challenges Melco Crown faces, the CAPS community has been positive on the stock. Nearly 1,100 members give it an outperform rating, while just 46 have labeled it an underperformer.

Last fall, CAPS All-Star vitrified became one of the Melco Crown bulls:

Macau is becoming the world's Las Vegas, and there seems to be a strong market for gambling. As Macau gets over its growing pains and the world economy gets back on track (and with it a greater appetite for risk among investors), watch for this one to explode.

But here's the important question: What's your take on it? Will Melco Crown bull its way through recession and lay claim to Macau's gambling riches? Get in the action by clicking over to CAPS. CAPS is absolutely free, and it already has more than 135,000 stock pickers chipping in to find the world's best stocks.

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