5 Superball Stocks: Vodafone Group plc (ADR) (VOD), Dendreon Corporation (DNDN)

When stocks fall fast and far, they sometimes set themselves up for remarkable rebounds. The following equities suffered dramatic drops over the past week. With help from the 180,000 members of Motley Fool CAPS, we’ll see whether any of them have the potential to bounce back.

It’s been a while, but thanks to last week’s sell-off, we once again have a chance to stand beneath Mr. Market’s silverware drawer in hopes of snagging a bargain. Let’s meet today’s contenders:

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

Five super falls — one superball
Like a belated, publicly traded groundhog, the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly peeked above the 14,000 mark last week, before diving back down for cover. Nonetheless, the market held pretty steady, ending with the Dow down a small fraction of 1% for the week. But not all investors were so lucky.

In fact, across the length and breadth of the stock market, some 2,890 separate equities ended the week lower than they began it. So what went wrong?

Beginning at the bottom, Level 3 shares got crushed Tuesday after reporting a big pro forma loss (and an even bigger net loss). On the plus side, Level 3 did report strong free cash flow  in the fiscal fourth quarter, so there’s still hope this stock can bounce back if it keeps that up.

Dendreon shares were wiped out by a downgrade to “sell” from Maxim Group — a downgrade I happen to agree with.

Alcatel, in contrast, tripped itself up, reporting lower revenues two Fridays back, announcing a big net loss, and firing its CEO to boot. That set investors to betting against it, even though one analyst decided to upgrade the stock.

Meanwhile, oil and gas developer Halcon Resources appears to have declined for no good reason at all, losing 7.6% of its market cap in a week when OPEC released estimates predicting a surge in oil demand in 2013.

Does that sound a little strange to you? It does to me. Yet there’s one stock on today’s list that investors think an even bigger bargain than Halcon — or anyone else on the list, for that matter. Read on, as Fools discuss …