Get Ready for the Bounce

"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, now would there? The idea of buying a former highflier at a discount price certainly has its attractions. The trick, of course, is to improve the odds that when you make your grab, it's haft you latch onto, 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 furthest. 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 -- and why.

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

Knives and knaves
As you can see, our fellow investors over on CAPS aren't terribly enamored of this lot. The vast majority of the stocks on MSN's "shot" list don't even have CAPS ratings, because they're too small and too illiquid to merit including in our service. Of those that do make the initial cut, the vast majority receive below-average ratings of only one or two stars.

Ready to bounce?
Last week in this column, we profiled four-star stock Jupitermedia. We noted that after its long fall, a full 30 "all star" CAPS raters thought the stock was ready to rise once more. Since that column was published, several more Fools have taken a look at Jupitermedia, and the verdict is clear: We now have 41 All-Star ratings, and sentiment is running 40-to-1 in favor of a rebound.

Time will prove whether our "collective intelligence" is better than that of the market on Jupitermedia. While we wait for that debate to play itself out, let's turn our attention today to three-star IMAX:

• All-Star rater 8martini8, one of my favorite posters on the Motley Fool Rule Breakers discussion boards, notes that IMAX's "Price has been brutally pummeled by 3 factors: (1) failed attempt to sell company, (2) poor performance of some of this year's feature films, and (3) lumpy distribution of new theater openings. Price should get a nice dramatic bounce with next quarter's comparatively better numbers, and hopefully some stronger movies (like Spiderman III) in the pipeline too."
  
  
• And 87th percentile rater daskol echoed the sentiments of many investors, musing aloud that "maybe someone will buy them out"?
  
  
• But my favorite comment has to come from rockjim33, who scores in the 98th percentile on CAPS -- and shows us why with a comment that encapsulates the Foolish philosophy that you can't judge a business by the meanderings of its stock price. He writes: "What's life without a little risk? I own IMAX at 7 something. I thought it was a good deal then, now I think it is a great deal."

Are they right? Are they wrong? Tell us what you think on Motley Fool CAPS.

IMAX is a Rule Breakers newsletter selection and Doral Financial used to be an Inside Value recommendation.

Fool contributor Rich Smith does not own shares of any company named above. You can find him on CAPS, publicly pontificating under the handle TMF Ditty, where he's ranked 291 out of nearly 15,000 raters. The Fool is investors writing for investors.