With the history-making, tumultuous events inspiring shocking headlines on almost a daily basis, who stands to benefit?

It's too early to say for sure, but the possibilities are out there for our consideration.

Goldman Sachs Group (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS) may not the companies they used to be due to the new government regulations and restrictions that will now apply with their conversions to bank holding companies, but both will likely be left standing when the dust has settled - and with substantially less competition to contend with after the demise of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers (LEH) and pending digestion of Merrill (MER) by Bank of America (BAC). Both companies possess very strong businesses and are well placed without any competition left.

Insurance firms may be attractive for a number of reasons. First, they will likely gain a big chunk of the market now that AIG has basically disappeared - as well as directly benefiting from the reduced competition. Also they have some pretty attractive assets which may demand inflated prices. Travelers (TRV) and Chubb (CB) fit this theme well as well as some of the major life insurers such as MetLife (MET) and Prudential (PRU).

I will be digging deeper into these and may be recommending one or two of the best positioned in this week's G3 Global Options issue, but it's too early to make bets on these now as there are too many question marks outstanding. If you dip your toes into any of these players, use restraint until we know more. At the very least we should wait and see more details from the bailout being hammered out right now on the congressional floor.

All in all one thing we are certain to see in the next days and weeks will be greater transparency in the valuation of these mortgage securities both here in the US and globally. Hopefully we will have had a jump start in identifying good companies with some potentially profitable holdings.

Jeff Manera, Editor
G3 Global Options
G3 Global Investor
Emerging Markets Insider
Email: Jmanera@EmergingMarketsInsider.net