Find tomorrow's titans today

By The Motley Fool

Stocks that climb to 10 times their original price are a rare breed, but they're not impossible to find.

The market's best stocks include companies that have risen tens, even hundreds, of times in value over the past decade. These aren't penny stocks: They're viable companies with sound prospects and phenomenal returns every year.

Finding just one or two of these monstrously successful companies can help you establish a winning portfolio.

• Contest: Beat the market, win $2,500

To help find tomorrow's monster stocks, we'll enlist the more than 81,000 investors at MSN CAPS. We've compiled a list of the most successful CAPS players, called All-Stars, whose picks have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled in price.

Then we've plucked out some of their recent picks for stocks they find 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.

Stalking the monster

Player	Player rating	Monster stock	CAPS rating	Recent stock pick	CAPS rating
"adoratium"	97.63	Baidu.com	***	Freeport-McMoRan	*****
"xxxpatriate"	75.50	SunPower	**	Cree	****
"stockgripes"	97.21	Dendreon	**	Trina Solar	**
"wagnermr14"	98.58	China Natural Resources	*	Drew Industries	*****

A chance to shine

With Congress having decided that we'll eliminate the use of incandescent bulbs, alternative forms of lighting will have their chance to shine. While many people might first think of fluorescents or their close cousin, compact fluorescents, the real future lies with LEDs, or light-emitting diodes.

LEDs shine brighter and last longer; their one drawback tends to be cost. But that has been coming down in recent years, and with big lighting companies such as General Electric (GE, news, msgs), L.G. Philips (LPL, news, msgs) and Siemens (SMAWF, news, msgs) making acquisitions in the industry, expect to see costs continue to drop.

Cree Inc. (CREE, news, msgs) is one of the primary producers of LEDs and one of the few remaining publicly traded companies not yet gobbled up. While rumors regularly swirl about an imminent partnership, so far Cree stands alone and at the head of the pack.

CAPS All-Star "Kinzo," one of the top-rated players in CAPS with a 99.75 score, finds that LEDs now have the big push they need, particularly as they compete against compact fluorescents.

"Alternative energy is sooo hot right now and so is energy-saving equipment," the All-Star wrote. "Congress recently passed a law that will phase out all incandescent light bulbs by 2014. There is of course the new compact fluorescent bulb. They do save energy but contain an unhealthy amount of mercury. A bigger concern for the consumer is that even though they last three times as long and use only one-fifth the energy, they're almost six times as expensive. So what's the alternative? CANDLES! Just kidding.

"For this answer, look at the little flashlight on my keychain. What is it? Why the LED bulb of course! And who makes this product? Cree is one of the only LED producers that are publicly traded and therefore could potentially be a huge value. Hooray for LED's!"

As for CAPS player "leubypopoff," it's a matter of Cree benefiting from the movement toward "green" technology.

"The production of LED semiconductors is part of the 'go green' movement," leubypopoff wrote. "LEDs are the future of lighting as the world turns to energy-saving measures. CREE is at the forefront of the LED technology and will be a huge player in the coming years."

Now's the opportunity for you to weigh in on Cree or any of the other stocks these All-Stars see as achieving monster growth.

Agree with their views? Tell us on CAPS. If you don't agree, let us know that, too. If you've got an opinion, this is where your voice counts just as much as everyone else's. Tell us if you think these are tomorrow's monster stocks that have been uncovered today.

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