Get Ready for the Bounce

"Don't catch a falling knife." Thus commandeth the old saw (to mix a cutlery metaphor.)

But if people weren't tempted to catch cutlery in the first place, there'd be no need for this little bit of investing wisdom, would there? The idea of buying a former highflier at a discount price certainly has its attractions. The trick, of course, is to increase the odds that when you make your grab, you're catching haft, not blade. That's where we come in.

In The Motley Fool's continuing effort to keep your investing dollars safe, today we'll once again assume our position beneath Mr. Market's silverware drawer. As the knives plummet, we'll measure who's fallen farthest. Then we'll head over to Motley Fool CAPS to ask which of these stocks, if any, Foolish investors think are ready to rebound to new highs.

Let's meet today's list of contenders, drawn from the latest 52-week-lows list at MSN Money:

Knives and knaves
As you can see, our fellow investors over on CAPS aren't terribly enamored of this lot. The vast majority of the stocks on MSN's "shot" list don't even have CAPS ratings, being too small and illiquid to merit inclusion in our service. Of the few that did make the initial cut, half haven't attracted enough interest to earn a rating, and a third received below-average ratings of just two stars. In fact, only one stock gets even grudging approval on CAPS: tri-starred Bentley Pharmaceuticals.

Ready to bounce?
Now, I won't be talking about Bentley today. (You can if you want. Just click on over to CAPS, rate the stock, and tell us why you like or loathe it.) Instead, another stock has caught my eye today -- Jim Cramer-panned Powerwave. Double-starred though it might be, this maker of wireless communications equipment has attracted a lot more interest on CAPS. Here's what our players are saying about it:

• CAPS all-star tdomalley is biding time, waiting for Powerwave to post "a good quarter and watching for this one to pop back up."
  
  
• Fellow all-star pauljs33 takes a more business-centric view, arguing that not only is the price nice, but Powerwave's acquisition of Filtronics positions the company "for some nice higher level systems business complimenting their PA business," noting that "Filtronics is the industry leader here."
  
  
• Yet another all-star player, FringeElement, begs to differ. Joining the Jim Cramer camp, FringeElement declares that Powerwave has "no vision to differentiate themselves. They are too small to make much ground and appear to be on the way out."

Personally, I'm not terribly familiar with the company. But I'm willing to listen. What do you think? Do you agree with Mr. Cramer, FringeElement, and the other nine CAPS players who have rated this stock an underperformer? Or do you run with the bulls on this one? Whichever way you lean, at CAPS, you've got a chance to make yourself heard, and help your fellow investors in the process.

Motley Fool CAPS: It's fun, it's free, and it just might make you famous.

Fool contributor Rich Smith does not own shares of any company named above. You can find him on CAPS, publicly pontificating under the handle TMFDitty, where he's currently ranked 43 out of well over 22,000 raters. The Fool has a disclosure policy.