An outstanding call on Apple

By The Motley Fool

It's been a hard fall for Apple (AAPL, news, msgs) shares since the beginning of 2008, but then again, what hasn't gotten whacked? At MSN CAPS, Apple's stock is rated three stars out of a possible five and there are a whopping 11,486 players bullish on it.

The player leading the pack is "FieryGuy7," who rode an "outperform" call on Apple for an amazing 197% return in a little over a year. FieryGuy7's secret, though, was knowing when to take his gains and run -- he ended his outperform rating on Apple on Dec. 26, amid all the Christmas hype and right before the big fall at the beginning of the year.

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FieryGuy7 is a CAPS All-Star -- a player with a rating of 80 or higher -- and though his accuracy has been just over 50%, he's racked up almost 450 points.

Apple hasn't been this investor's only great call. He placed an outperform rating on Amazon.com (AMZN, news, msgs) on Aug. 25, 2006, when the shares of the Internet retailer were at $27.78, then closed his position on Sept. 24 of last year when the stock was trading at $92.39. FieryGuy7 also placed prescient bets on oil and gas producer W & T Offshore (WTI, news, msgs) and lumber supplier Deltic Timber (DEL, news, msgs).

So what is this investor looking at these days? Here are a few of his most recent calls on CAPS.

Recent outperform calls from FieryGuy7

Company	Industry	Price-to-earnings ratio	CAPS rating (out of 5)
Netflix	Music and video rentals	22.2	**
Intuitive Surgical	Medical equipment	58.6	****
Jones Soda	Beverages	-118.4	**

While some of these picks may not pan out, they could be starting points for additional research. Intuitive Surgical (ISRG, news, msgs), for instance, has been a crowd favorite.

The "Terminator" movies aside, I remain pretty convinced that the expanded use of robotics in the coming years will be great for us humans. I mean, who's really going to complain about one of iRobot's (IRBT, news, msgs) Roombas zipping around the house vacuuming up cookie crumbs?

In the realm of more complex robotics, Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci Surgical System aids surgeons in making precise movements through small incisions. Minimally invasive surgery is a great option for patients, since it typically causes less trauma, has shorter recovery times and often means that procedures can be done on an outpatient basis.

As an innovator in the industry, the company has a near-monopoly in this young and growing area. As with any high-growth fare, there are drawbacks, such as a high valuation and no dividend, but the positives of the company led the Motley Fool's Selena Maranjian to call Intuitive Surgical the best stock for 2008.

CAPS player "TMFBreakerJava" has been bullish on Intuitive Surgical since last spring, when the stock was trading at $120. It opened Thursday at $290 a share. He wrote:

"The da Vinci Surgical System is making traditional surgery obsolete. In 20 years it may well be grounds for a malpractice suit to pick up a knife and cut into another human being free handed. Soon, most surgery will be performed with devices like this one. And Intuitive Surgical will get revenue from each procedure that is performed."

Of course, with the stock up more than 150% over the past 12 months, more than 2,100 players on CAPS expect it will continue to outperform the market.

You can see more of what CAPS players have to say about Intuitive Surgical by clicking over to the CAPS site. It's absolutely free and already has more than 82,000 stock pickers chipping in to find the best stocks out there.

This article was reported and written by Matt Koppenheffer for The Motley Fool. At the time of publication, he owned none of the stocks mentioned.