Rally on the Nasdaq

Don't catch a falling knife," the sages say. 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.
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For the second time today, im upending Mr. Market's kitchen drawers and watching the knives tumble. ive already sifted through the silverware on the NYSE. Now it's time to take a stab (pardon the pun) at bargain-hunting on the Nasdaq. As always, start with the latest "New 52-Week Lows" list at WSJ.com, then crunch the numbers on investor sentiment at

Knives and knaves
By the close of trading Friday, no fewer than 555 stocks trading on the NYSE hit bottom. Over at the Nasdaq, the news was little better -- 391 listings landed with dull thuds at their 52-week lows.

No two ways about it, folks -- things are tough all over. But 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. You just know that some of these babies will bounce right back once the suds subside.

Here at The Motley Fool, we've already made like Angelina Jolie and bundled three of these babies into our various portfolios. Dell is a Inside Value pick. Take-Two landed in the Rule Breakers port. And Dynamic Materials is a Motley Fool Hidden Gems selection -- and the top-ranked stock on today's list. Let's find out why.

The bull case for Dynamic Materials
CAPS All-Star dhabluetzel introduced us to Dynamic back in October. The company's stock in trade is:

[p]roviding corrosion protection cladding for base metal sheets [which] is in demand in industry. Many processes utilise highly corrosive chemicals to join polymers to produce raw plastic for industry. The oil patch also uses these end products (clad metal ) in the construction of refineries which are going to have to be built to keep up with demand and replace existing ageing plants.

A guy noted in July that "Dynamic Materials has 40% share of Explosion Welding Market and growth is huge." I should probably point out here that the market share in question extends past the oil patch. The company's big customers also include aerospace giants as General Electric (NYSE: GE) and United Technologies (NYSE: UTX).

Back in June, yet another top CAPS scorer, Another guy, wrote that the stock is: "certainly the dominant player in this very technologically challenging field. Recently beaten down."

Good news! If you liked the stock back then, at $34, you're going to love it at the recent low, low price of $10 and change.

Hurray?
Dynamic's plunge to a 52-week low probably isn't cause for rejoicing among current shareholders, I'll admit. But for those of us who've always wanted to own the stock, but never thought the price quite right in the past, it does offer an attractive entry point today.

And I'm not just talking about the five-times-earnings valuation here, either. Other investors place a lot of faith in the venerable PEG metric, but personally, I've always favored free cash flow for valuation -- and the even more reliable price-to-free cash flow multiple on offer at Dynamic attracts me.

Dynamic trades for six times its free cash flow. It's expected to grow earnings at some 13% per year over the next half-decade. And it's paying us a tidy 1.5% dividend to await the fruition of these hopes. Call me a Fool for saying so, but I think these numbers make for a pretty compelling buy thesis.

Time to chime in
Now that you've heard from me and the CAPS community, we really want to hear your thoughts. Click over to Motley Fool CAPS and tell us what you think.