Everyday there are more and more orphans on Wall Street, and I have to be honest--I think it's great news!

By orphans, of course, I mean orphan stocks. These are publicly traded stocks that aren't followed by a single analyst on Wall Street.

This is good for investors because when there are fewer eyes watching a stock, there's a greater opportunity for us to uncover a hidden gem. In fact, finding these under-the-radar stocks has been one of the keys to my long-term investing success.

I'll look almost anywhere to find a great stock. That's one of the reasons why The New York Times called me "an icon among growth stock investors." My results speak for themselves. Since 1985, the average stock on my legendary Emerging Growth Buy List has jumped over 50-fold. That's nearly four times better than the market.

One of the reasons why we've been so successful is that we don't do what everybody else is doing--and that means we've had the help of many orphan stocks.

Let me give you a great example. In June, I recommended selling Hansen Natural (HANS) from my Emerging Growth Buy List. The energy drink stock was an enormous winner for us. In just three years, we made over 1,100%. Today, a lot of folks know about the stock and the company's Monster Energy Drink, but when I first recommended it, Hansen was practically unheard of. A few people thought I was crazy to recommend it.

Some investors hate going off the beaten path. Others are just plain skittish about investing in an unknown company. Not me. I looked at Hansen's fundamentals and I liked what I saw. Sales and earnings were growing rapidly, margins were strong and the company had a smart business plan. When I recommended the stock, I think the company had only one analyst following it. Today, there are seven. Of course, that's only happened after its huge run.

The reason there are more orphans today is that Wall Street has drastically cut back on its research departments. In fact, Prudential recently decided to eliminate its research department entirely. One reason for this is cost and another is that fewer investors trust what the research has to say anymore. As a result, the big research departments are getting scaled back. I think we're going to see more and more of this as time goes on. The result will be that only the big stocks will be followed.

Google (GOOG), for example, is followed by over 30 analysts. Heck, that's enough people to start their own search engine! Let me be clear about Google--this is a stock I really like. I recommend the stock in my Emerging Growth service and my subscribers are up over 25% in less than two years. I like almost everything about Google, but one thing I don't like is that nearly every firm on the Street has an analyst covering it. That means every little misstep will be noticed, often to dramatic results

Now let's look at another stock I like, U.S. Global Investors (GROW), an asset managed company. Last October, my analysts and I spotted this stock and we instantly became intrigued. Once again, I pored over the numbers and liked what I saw. I knew the Street was missing something because the company looked so strong. Would you believe that U.S. Global Investors wasn't followed by one analyst? I added it to my Emerging Growth Buy List and before the end of the year, the shares had tripled! That's a 200% gain in just 12 weeks! Now do you see why I love orphans?

U.S. Global Investors' shares have been much steadier lately, but the stock is still completely ignored by Wall Street. I currently rate GROW an aggressive buy up to $26 a share.

My advice is to ignore the crowd and don't be afraid of a stock that's not widely known on Wall Street. After all, all big-cap stocks once started out as small-cap stocks.