When economies suffer, investors look to  “consumer staples,” i.e. companies that are a fundamental part of a consumer’s regular expenditures. This includes energy, food, and the like. When money tightens, everyone starts to spend less and spend more carefully. So what’s left for us, as investors, to do is to find out what companies can benefit from consumers spending less.

I’ve come to two different picks in different industries for you to look at. This is a preliminary look - it’s wise not to take my picks as reasons to go call your brokers. Instead, as always, let this post serve as your starting point to discovering good companies with solid earnings and good prices that you personally like.

My prior article was about how this market's downfall is going to be quite damaging, yet guaranteed to be temporary.

I didn't mean for it to cause an 11.1% increase in the Dow. I'm sorry.

This is not a time to panic and sell out of all your investments.

In every downturn economy, people start to predict the end. Irrational investing takes hold of your portfolio and the consequence is buying high and selling low. Why is it that in the last quarter century - we've seen 124 different banking crises throughout the world and every single one of them we have bounced back? Why do we not learn from history?

In the last two weeks, we have seen the federal government take over Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) in a move to save the companies from completely going under. We've seen headhunting vultures perched outside of the Lehman Brothers Manhattan offices hours after the iconic firm declared bankruptcy.AIG (AIG) , a major global insurer, pleaded with the Federal Reserve for liquidity assistance. Meanwhile, Merrill Lynch (MER) was taken over by the Bank of America (BAC) powerhouse (who will soon indeed become the bank of America). And finally, the only two remaining powerhouse investment banks, Goldman (GS) and Morgan (MS), hung their investment banking hats up and then became traditional bank holding companies. A bloody September indeed.

The street reaction: on a sunny Monday morning, investors pulled out enough funds from the market to tank the indices over 500 points in one day, or down nearly 5%. The trading days that followed didn't provide much support. The only other thing that could tank the market in this fashion is the day two enormous planes flew into two skyscrapers, permanently affecting the Manhattan skyline (dramatic enough for you?).

Firstly, it’s a scary market out there. Don’t get into new picks and dump more money unless you’re comfortable tying your money up for at least a year, perhaps several years. Secondly, I’ve been doing some research on “the next big growth area” or whatever you want to call it, and I’m finding that developing nations are now slowly mandating the installation of airbags in all vehicles. This means that key niche companies which focus on airbags and safety equipment and have heavy international exposure may benefit immensely. I found one such company - Autoliv (ALV).

Autoliv is a Swedish based American company with employees in 30 different countries. This pick is a growth play with a one to two year horizon. I took a look at their annual report (which is the first place you should look when analyzing stocks) - and their revenue is in solid shape, increasing 9% in the last year to $6.8 billion after modestly dropping the year prior. Their net income is flat after adjusting for one-time issues (but who doesn’t have one time issues nowadays?). They’re focusing on lowering costs and increasing profitability by switching over to low cost countries - here we go India.