5 Superball Stocks

In my recurring Fool column "Get Ready for the Bounce," we search for future winners in a pile of 52-week losers. But do we really need to sit around for a whole year, waiting for a fallen stock to bounce back?

 Nope. Sometimes stocks fall hard, in far less time than a year. And like a superball dropped from the balcony, the harder they fall, the higher they bounce. Today, we'll look at a few equities that have suffered dramatic drops over the past week. With a little help from the 170,000 members of Motley Fool CAPS, we hope to find an opportunity or two for you:

Companies are selected by screening on finviz.com for abrupt 5% or greater price drops over the past week. 52-week high and recent price data provided by finviz.com. CAPS ratings from Motley Fool CAPS.

Lots of bad news out there ...
A relatively cheerful Mr. Market tacked another 1.4% onto the S&P 500's market cap last week, but not all investors were so fortunate.

A rough week for Irish debt ratings saw Bank of Ireland take yet another tumble. Level 3 Communications -- another stock with liquidity problems -- saw its stock sliced 12% in a day when it was forced to issue another $175 million in convertible debt. Debt woes also seem to be behind Tuesday's tumble at PDL BioPharma, which upped the amount of common stock that lenders would receive for converting their convertible notes into common stock, which increased the risk of shareholder dilution.

Shifting gears to nondebt-related news, Cliffs Natural Resources confided that it won't be producing quite as many of these resources as previously predicted. Blaming an "adverse geological condition" at one of its mines, Cliffs slashed estimates for coal sales defined in tons, reduced its estimated price per ton, and cut guidance on this year's revenue as well. Investors were not amused.

Last but not least, we come to the only stock on this week's list that had nothing bad to announce last week -- and the one stock I think best-positioned to bounce back from its current weakness.

Drew Industries
Actually, Drew Industries' presence on this list -- and its four-star popularity among CAPS members -- is a bit of a mystery. Not a single CAPS member has posted a comment about this key supplier to the RV and manufactured homes industry in more than a year. Yet some of our very best investors, the CAPS All-Stars, are maintaining their bullish stance, and I agree.

A year ago, All-Star investor Wharton93 predicted that as "the economy improves, the RV market will pick up." Before that, SkinInvest had observed that "baby boomers are hitting that ripe old retirement age soon." Nearly two years ago, eagles22 wrote: "It may take awhile, but this will come around."

Good profits come to those who wait
And come around it has. Just last week, RV manufacturer Thor Industries signaled its optimism by buying Hoosier RV maker Heartland Recreational Vehicles for $210 million, years after Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B) Chairman Warren Buffett first hinted at the industry's attractiveness, buying manufactured homes builder Clayton Homes.

Meanwhile, as the rest of the investing world slept, Drew Industries has quietly outperformed the broader S&P 500, rewarding the patience of our CAPS All-Stars, and adding tons of points to the scorecards. I believe there are more in store. Why? Because while Drew may look expensive on a simple price-to-earnings basis, the company's actually a whole lot cheaper than it appears.  I'd go so far as to say value-priced.

Consider: With $48.1 million in trailing free cash flow, Drew already generates 78% more cash from its business than its reported GAAP earnings suggest. The rapidly growing pile of cash also belies the apparently expensive market cap. Net out the cash Drew has generated, and the company's enterprise value drops to just over $372 million, which is less than eight times the amount of cash Drew generates in a year.

Foolish takeaway
Even with the modest 10% growth rate that analysts predict for Drew, this looks cheap enough to allow Drew's stock to outperform the market for years if all goes as planned. Considering Drew's habit of exceeding expectations and rolling over analyst profits predictions, it seems to me more likely that things will go better than planned.

That's what I think. What I'd really like to know, though, is what you see in Drew's future. All those optimistic predictions we were hearing a few years back -- about baby boomers retiring and buying RVs -- do they still hold true in this economic downturn? Or are oldsters more likely to be left living out of the trunks of their Oldsmobiles, than buying new RVs for retirement?

Click over to Motley Fool CAPS now, and tell us what you think.