Opportunities can be hard to spot. Thomas Edison said it's because they walk around dressed in overalls, looking a lot like work.

In the markets, opportunity can wear some very strange clothing. Sometimes a great buy will pop up in a truly crappy industry. Other times, a stock that investors love can get too far ahead of itself. When that happens, a market darling morphs into a great short candidate.

We've seen a lot of the second example lately. My friend Cash McDash has been making a mint shorting many a highflier whose engine has sputtered out. (And we'll soon be revealing a new service -- very soon, in fact -- that will give you a deeper and more exclusive look at Cash's picks. Look for more on this tomorrow.)

But what about the first example, when a great buy appears in an industry or sector that's been tossed out, torn up, beaten down and so on? Value investors are quite familiar with this scenario. Ugly industries can produce beautiful opportunities for a host of reasons.

One of the most interesting occurrences is when nearly all the competitors in an industry screw up, but one company gets it right. When that happens, investors tend to throw out the whole industry -- lock, stock and barrel -- as if all the players had fallen into an open manhole. They don't look around to see if anyone sidestepped the manhole.

In other words, the madding crowd rarely stops to say, "Wait a minute. This particular business isn't like the others. It didn't make the same mistakes as its foolhardy brethren... and now it looks like it's in a much stronger position."

Ann Sosnowski of Safe Haven Investor has found a company like this. She calls it "the last honest bank in America." Take a look.

Warm Regards,

JL