Consider Coors for the Next Round

Editor's Note: Jon D. Markman writes a weekly column for CNBC on MSN Money that is republished here on TheStreet.com.

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Learning my trade as a newsman in Southern California in the 1980s, I covered so many brush fires that I'm still trying to get the smell of smoked chaparral out of my clothes. The blazes that swept out of the wilderness to attack developments in Pasadena, Malibu and Laguna Beach all had one amazing constant: They rarely burned down a whole block. One or two houses were always left standing, virtually undamaged, as if protected by a divine hand to lead the recovery.

During market conflagrations such as the one that consumed Wall Street last week, there are likewise always several stocks left standing -- although they are hard to see at the time amid the smoldering ruins. Yet you need to train yourself to look, because those tend to be the companies that become market leaders when investors regain their appetite for buying, as they always do.

Back in 2000, as an example, value stocks that had been ignored for years rubbed sleep out of their eyes and jumped higher the minute technology stocks began to crash. Classic case: From March 10, the day of the Nasdaq Composite top that year, to the start of 2002, brewer Anheuser-Busch (BUD Quote)rose 65%, while tech favorite Cisco Systems(CSCO Quote) lost 75%. If not an act of providence, it was at least a fast shift in the way investors decided to value companies.

Durable Heroes

Today we see the same forces at work, and strangely enough, another brewer, Molson Coors Brewing(TAP Quote), has led the charge of the underappreciated.