5 Superball Stocks

When stocks fall fast and far, they sometimes set themselves up for remarkable rebounds. The following equities suffered dramatic drops over the past week. With help from the 180,000-member Motley Fool CAPS community, we'll see whether any of them have the potential to bounce back.

It's been a while, but thanks to last week's sell-off, we once again have a chance to stand beneath Mr. Market's silverware drawer in hopes of snagging a bargain. Let's meet today's contenders:

Companies are selected by screening on finviz.com for abrupt 10% or greater price drops last week. Fifty-two-week high and recent price data provided by finviz.com. CAPS ratings from Motley Fool CAPS.

Five super falls -- one superball
For four straight days, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted last week, before a modestly positive jobs report on Friday pulled it out of its nosedive. Even so, the last-minute save wasn't enough to salvage the fortunes of all stocks. Nearly 3,300 companies ended the week lower than they went into it. More than 300 were decimated, losing 10% or more of their market cap, and these included all five of the stocks named above. So what went wrong?

Beginning at the bottom, rare-earth metals miner Molycorp lost more than a quarter of its market cap after reporting earnings Friday. Revenue was up modestly, but less than expected. Worse, the company's $0.71 per-share loss fell well short of the $0.03 profit analysts had told us to expect. Oops.

Speaking of earnings, Arena Pharmaceuticals is slated to report Thursday. If last week's trading was any indication of what the news might hold, it won't be good. The shares lost 22%. It's a similar story with MannKind, which reports its earnings today. Meanwhile, Dendreon earned its place atop the pile of weekly losers when it admitted that Q2 sales grew slower than expected -- $80 million instead of $85 million, a mere 66% increase. ("Only" 66%? Horrors!) The good news, though, is that based on last week's results, Dendreon's only $71.5 million in annual revenues away from making a profit. We hope.

So much for the two- and three-starred stocks on this list. What you really want to know about is the stock that everyone thinks will do well, right? Well, you're in luck. Now we turn to our five-starred nominee.

The bull case for Dolby Laboratories
Like everyone else on this list, Dolby shares got crushed last week. The reason? Pretty straightforward: Dolby missed estimates on both the top and bottom lines. And yet, my reaction to the stock's 14% drop in share price probably isn't what you'd expect it to be. Today, I like Dolby more than ever.

Why? Well first and most obviously, because the stock is a heckuvalot cheaper today than it was just a week ago. At 12 times earnings, and less than 10 times free cash flow, the stock's a steal of a deal if Dolby comes anywhere close to meeting Wall Street's prediction of 14% long-term profits growth.

But there's a second reason to love Dolby as well: It didn't do what everyone seems to think it did. Sure, earnings were down for the quarter. Earnings for the past 12 months ($292 million) are lower compared to what the company was earning just six months ago ($309 million), too. But the more important number, free cash flow, shows that Dolby is actually generating about the same amount of free cash today as it was six months ago -- about $355 million. Even if my fellow Fool Anders Bylund is right, and the DVD is dying, Dolby's business of turning sound into rock-solid cash remains as strong as ever.

It's not just me saying this. All-Star CAPS investor Momentum21 agrees that Dolby's "numbers are still solid" with a "low P/E, decent earnings forecasts and high ROIC."

CAPS member pchop123 points to Dolby's "lack of debt" as another reason to buy.

Going forward, CAPS member mdcombs believes that "Dolby's business model allows them to convert revenue to net profits very efficiency. This in turn creates cash flow to fund their business properly."

To recap: Cheap price. No debt. Decent earnings. Efficient production of cash. There are four good reasons to expect Dolby to bounce back from its big drop.

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