"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 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 and ask which of these stocks Foolish investors think are ready to rebound to new highs -- if any.

With that said, let's meet today's list of contenders, drawn from the latest "52-week lows list" at MSN Money:

52-Week High

Currently Fetching

CAPS Rating (out of 5)

Meruelo Maddux  (NASDAQ:MMPI)

$10.90

$8.28

**

Coley Pharmaceutical  (NASDAQ:COLY)

$14.00

$8.34

**

GSI Technology  (NASDAQ:GSIT)

$5.99

$4.24

*

Labopharm  (NASDAQ:DDSS)

$9.07

$3.07

*

Pharmasset (NASDAQ:VRUS)

$9.42

$8.60

Not rated
Companies are selected from the "New 52-Week Lows" list published on MSN Money on the Saturday following close of trading last week. 52-week high and current pricing provided by Yahoo! Finance. CAPS ratings from Motley Fool CAPS.

Knives and knaves
They say that "hope springs eternal." But whoever "they" are, "they" need to take a long, hard look at today's list -- which appears to disprove the old truism. The highest-ranked stock on the list doesn't get so much as an average three-star rating on CAPS. Indeed, I've rarely encountered such a sad bunch of orphaned stocks. Hope seems utterly absent -- save for one case.

Ready to bounce?
That case would be GSI Technology. As unloved as any stock you'll find in CAPS-land, one of our All-Star investors has adopted this apparent lost cause -- and found reason for optimism. Says FluffyPinkBunny, "It's got potential if they hire a new web designer. Nice fundamentals - Nice PEG and growth, a positive cash flow, and no debt. After the IPO falter I'm getting a nice discount. I can handle that."

Indeed, when you look at the stock from a pure-numbers perspective, there seems to be a lot to like in this little maker of static random access memory chips; after all, its customers include Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO), Nortel (NYSE:NT), and Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU). There's also a trailing P/E of 13 and a stable of four analysts predicting 20% annual growth going forward. Throw in a cash-rich balance sheet and positive free cash flow, and the stock just might have a future.

Be aware, however, that that free cash flow has only amounted to $1 million over the last 12 months -- just a fraction of the $7.3 million that GSI reported in net earnings. Remember -- it's not for nothing that a stock gets a one-star rating on CAPS.

Time to chime in
So what do you think? Is there as much to GSI as meets the eye, or does the disparity between cash profits and accounting profits give you the willies? If you've got an opinion either way -- or indeed, an opinion on any of the other stocks making today's list -- we'd love to hear from you.

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 No. 1,802 out of more than 29,000 raters. The Fool has a disclosure policy.