7 Highly Rated Stocks on Sale

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I'm always looking for a good deal, whether that means buying an extra box of Coco Puffs on sale, or pouncing on undervalued stocks. And if the idea that anybody would sell a stock for less than its worth seems silly, well, you haven't met Mr. Market.

According to The Intelligent Investor, by legendary value investor Ben Graham, Mr. Market pays you house calls each day. He'll offer to sell you interests in businesses he owns, or buy from you interests in businesses you own. Sometimes Mr. Market shows up very excited, offering you premium prices for your holdings. At other times, he'll be totally depressed about the future, peddling his stocks for as low as pennies on the dollar.

To find some of the stocks that Mr. Market is depressed about, I've turned once again to The Motley Fool's CAPS investor community. Each of the companies below merited a maximum five-star rating from CAPS players just 30 days ago:

Stock	30-day return	One-year return	Current CAPS rating
NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA)	(23.8%)	13.8%	*****
Immersion	(23.5%)	36.1%	*****
Cypress Semiconductor (NYSE: CY)	(20.8%)	56.7%	****
VASCO Data Security (Nasdaq: VDSI)	(20.6%)	31.3%	*****
MEMC Electronic Materials (NYSE: WFR)	(19.7%)	53.5%	****
ASML Holding NV	(19.5%)	7.4%	*****
Cognizant Technology Solutions (Nasdaq: CTSH)	(18.5%)	(34.5%)	*****

Data from Motley Fool CAPS as of Jan. 15.

As the table shows, these stocks remain very well-regarded by the CAPS community, despite their underperformance over the past month. While these are not formal recommendations, they could be a great place to kick off some further research. I'll even get you started with some thoughts on MEMC Electronic Materials.

The tech tumble
You might notice that this whole list is tech-related, which should be no surprise. While Mr. Market steadily ground consumer discretionary and financial stocks under his heel for the past six months, tech managed to avoid taking a big hit -- until now.

Over the past month, tech started slipping, and yesterday's disappointing release from Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) could make things even worse. But as the whole sector gets punished, some good stocks are getting cheaper.

In the solar energy sector, I have trouble with the valuations at which some fan favorites trade, especially given the flood of new solar companies entering the public markets over the past few years. But MEMC, a manufacturer of silicon wafers, may offer somewhat cheaper exposure to that trend.

These wafers are primarily used in the semiconductor industry, making reports like Intel's disconcerting for MEMC. However, the wafers needed for manufacturing solar panels are in high demand, and they've been somewhat of a bottleneck for the solar players. As one of the major suppliers of silicon wafers, MEMC's well-positioned to reap the rewards of the growing solar industry.

On CAPS, All-Star 12bagger noted MEMC as a "companion investment" to Rule Breakers recommendation Suntech Power (NYSE: STP), which manufactures photovoltaic cells. He notes:

[MEMC] supplies raw material for PV cells. I'm betting that PV technology is here to stay as a growing contributor to global energy supply requirements. It's not hugely economical, at this point anyway, but stands a good chance of becoming more so in the future as production techniques become more efficient.

Has the recent drop created a good buying opportunity, or does more downside lurk ahead? Let the community know what you think -- head over to CAPS and share your thoughts with the other 81,000-plus players. Even if you'd prefer to pass on MEMC, you can check out a couple of the other stocks listed above, or any of the 5,300 stocks rated on CAPS.

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