When a stock hits a fresh low, it can either signal a dirt cheap dream stock or a dreadful stock to avoid. Separating the wheat from the chaff is difficult, but finding well-run companies at bargain-basement prices is a great way to accumulate a fortune over the long-run.

With that in mind, we'll use the aggregate intelligence of the 110,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS to see what the community is saying about stocks hitting 52-week lows today. The community's approval (signaled by four- and five-star ratings) could suggest that these stocks merit further research.

Here are three such stocks:

 Company

Today’s Low

Industry

CAPS Rating

Fools Saying Outperform

SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK)

$13.06

Electronics

****

1526 of 1641

Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN)

$23.28

Electronics

****

1149 of 1240

Vodafone Group (NYSE:VOD)

$25.50

Telecommunications

****

432 of 469

Source: Motley Fool CAPS, as of July 22, 2008.

Five-star electronics companies:

  • Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT) -- stock price is 17% than a year ago.
  • ANADIGICS (NASDAQ:ANAD) -- stock price is 34.9% cheaper than a year ago.

Five-star telecommunications companies:

  • Corning (NYSE:GLW) -- stock price is 22.6% cheaper than a year ago.
  • Harmonic (NASDAQ:HLIT) -- stock price is up 0.8% over the last year.

Join us on CAPS to learn more about these and countless other interesting stock ideas.