Coming Week: Focus on Fundamentals

Next week could see some bargain-hunting in stocks as traders look for opportunities within sectors that have been hammered, or those that have potential upside from the government's rescue plan.

The financial bailout plan was approved Friday, allowing the government to buy up to $700 billion worth of the illiquid assets that have been clogging up banks' balance sheets and operations. Its passage should ease constraints in the nearly frozen credit markets, and may even boost confidence across the board.

In theory, banks will be able to do business with one another again and should be more willing to lend to consumers and businesses.

Other sectors that stand to benefit from the bill, called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, are alternative energy and those heavily vested in research and development. TARP provides major tax breaks for the development of nonfossil-fuel power and other so-called "knowledge-based" programs as part of an effort to steer the economy toward science and technology and away from the industrial and service sectors, where jobs are moving abroad.

Manny Weintraub, founder and principal of money-management firm Integre Advisors, and former managing director of Neuberger Berman, says there are plenty of opportunities to be found. He notes that investors have hammered away at the embattled financial services sector, as well as highly leveraged utilities, and anything exposed to commodities, whose prices declined on a strengthening dollar and weaker economic outlook.

"Oversold is one word for it," he says, "but demolished is another word."