Get Ready for the Bounce

"Don't catch a falling knife," as the old saw commands. (Pardon my mixing a cutlery metaphor.) The idea of buying a former superstar stock at a discount price certainly has its attractions, but you've got to make sure you catch the haft -- not the blade. That's where Motley Fool CAPS comes in.

Today, we once again stand beneath Mr. Market's silverware drawer, measuring which knives have fallen the farthest. Then we'll call on CAPS to ask which of these stocks -- if any -- Foolish investors believe are ready for a rebound. Let's meet today's list of contenders, drawn from the latest "52-Week Lows" list at Nasdaq.com:

Knives and knaves
If there's one good thing about a broad-based market sell-off, it's that you find a lot of terrific companies getting the ol' baby 'n' bathwater treatment. Tossed out on their rosy little bums as if they were bums of another sort. You know -- just know -- that some of these babies are gonna bounce right back once the suds subside.

Case in point: Look at the companies on today's list. Name-brand firms, every one. Despite the notable lack of optimism among investors, I have little doubt we'll find at least one winner here. The likeliest choice is, of course, Clorox, rated four stars by CAPS players. So let's dive right into the bleach, and examine ...

The bull case for Clorox
Let's start with the obvious argument. Heading into a recession, you want to own recession-proof stocks, right? Well, rfricano thinks that's just what you'll find in the Clorox bottle: "Clorox has products that have to be purchased on a consistent basis. Their products are found in homes everywhere."

Clorox is, of course, more than just Clorox. You all remember Clorox's purchase of Burt's Bees last year, right? At the time, I argued that this was a mistake, and that Clorox paid too much in its desire to share in the double-digit sales growth of "personal products" companies like Elizabeth Arden (Nasdaq: RDEN) and Bare Escentuals (Nasdaq: BARE). CAPS All-Star Hinderloppet agrees that Clorox "definitely overpaid for Burts Bees," but points out that:

Their new Green Initiative 'Greenworks' is selling very well, plus they launched a new kind [of] cleaning wipes with a better non-woven product. They currently have 50% share of the cleaning wipes market, with the closest being Lysol with 20% share. So, the wipes and the Greenworks should help them report a good quarter.

And that's not all; lemoneater tells us,

Besides their wide array of convenient cleaning products they have the most impressive kitty litter ever! Other brands I tried did nothing for the acrid smell. Give a couple years for other catowners to discover this product and Clorox might just be the industry leader in kitty litty.

So buy a share of Clorox, and you're invested in more than just bleach -- you've also got lip balm and kitty litter. But do you want to own it?

It's OK if you have some doubts. The stock sells for 16.5 times trailing earnings, yet analysts expect it to grow at less than 11% per year over the next five years. Hardly an attractive value proposition at first glance. But if you look a little closer, I think you'll find that Clorox generates cash profits far in excess of what it reports as net income under GAAP. In fact, the company's price-to-free cash flow ratio works out to just 12.4.

To my mind, the stock's not yet bargain-priced, but for a recession-resistant stock like Clorox, this seems a not-unreasonable sum. Plus, with a 2.9% dividend on offer, you're already getting paid more than most bank CDs are yielding. So if it's a choice between sitting on your cash or investing it in a strong dividend payer, Clorox smells sweet by comparison.

Time to chime in
Of course, the aim of this column isn't just to tell you what I think about Clorox -- or even what other CAPS players are saying. We really want to hear your thoughts. Click on over to Motley Fool CAPS and tell us what you think.

And by the way, if dividend investing is your thing, don't forget to grab yourself a free trial subscription to Motley Fool Income Investor, where our average recommendation yields 5.25%, and is beating the S&P 500's performance by better than 7%.