Wall Street's Best Unknown Stocks

When asked for the secret of his success, baseball player Wee Willie Keeler replied, "Hit 'em where they ain't." What worked for Willie at the plate applies equally well in investing. 

Seeking stocks that others ignore, shun, or simply forget gives individual investors like you an edge over the professionals. When Wall Street turns a blind eye, you have a chance to get in before these stocks get discovered -- or rediscovered -- and start taking off. 

Below, we'll check out companies with only a handful of analyst coverage, then pair our list with the opinions of the Motley Fool CAPS community. A stock that garners CAPS' top ratings, but hasn't yet caught analysts' attention, could be your next home run investment. 

Source: Yahoo! Finance.

Remember, without analyst support, you'll have to do your own scouting to see whether these stocks deserve a spot on your portfolio's roster. Don't just buy or sell them based solely on their appearance here. 

A utility player
In the fragmented China fertilizer market, China Green Agriculture is pursuing an acquisition that could give it a distribution network in the backyard of rival Yongye International (Nasdaq: YONG). This gutsy move allows China Green to broaden its product offerings, which already include both organic and inorganic fertilizers.

According to China Green, only a quarter of the fertilizers used by farmers in China are organic; it expects China to hit the worldwide average of 50% within the next five to 10 years. Farmers benefit from government tax breaks for organic farming, and China Green Agriculture and Yongye get a break as well. Its tax rates hover around just 15%.

With only 7% of the world's arable land (and 20% of its population), China has a right to be more concerned about how its farmers grow their crops, according to CAPS member tytymhorau:

A micro-cap making/distributing organic liquid fertilizers in China. Concerns over China's fragile water supplies make organic fertilizers more desirable than chemical-based competitors as China seeks to expand its agriculture.

Short circuiting
We expected the laughter to die on the lips of Jinpan International when the cast-resin transformer maker reported first-quarter results. Investors may want to choke back some tears at the company's 40% decline in revenue, which resulted in a 76% drop in profit. Management suggested last quarter that a drop in sales was simply temporary, because of shipping patterns, but the trend continued this quarter. CAPS member Interpol10 looks correct for critiquing management's performance in the face of competitive pricing pressures.

Big rivals like ABB (NYSE: ABB) aren't Jinpan's concern; instead, it's fretting over the many smaller competitors that have been cutting prices. As a result, CEO Zhiyuan Li says Jinpan also adjusted its pricing to "better suit" the current environment.

Yet KempInTheWoods says while the immediate response may have punished the company's stock, the longer-term outlook for this sector suggests that Jinpan will be able to power up again:

Chinese manufacturer of products for power generation and distribution. There will be a long growth cycle for these products, but there will be competition. A short-term down cycle has made this stock cheap IMHO.

Modus operandi
CMGI was one of those dot-com names that still causes investors to shudder, remembering the sickening 99% plunge in value from which it still hasn't recovered. CMGI was rechristened ModusLink Global Solutions, and it now it provides a range of business-process management services primarily to tech companies. Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) accounted for more than a quarter of its revenue in the year ended July 2009.

The global recession has hurt its operations, which means that the reverberations still being felt in Europe could further punish ModusLink. Yet since the company also relies on the tech sector, which has been on fire lately, we just might see some surprises coming our way. Investors like rpsii are looking for better days:

The company is ready to begin showing strong profits now [that] the economy is turning. Good revenue, no debt and stock buyback puts them in the perfect springboard position. Expect it to go up nicely heading into next quarter's earnings.

Swing for the fences
When seeking investments where no one else is looking, Motley Fool CAPS is the best place to start your own research. 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. 

Sign up today for the completely free service, and tell us whether these hidden stock opportunities will help us go one up on Wall Street.