In his latest column for Canada’s Globe and Mail, Validea CEO John Reese says that the recent plunge in oil prices and oil stocks has made for opportunities for strong-stomached investors.

Reese says that, given the huge declines in oil stocks, most investors probably get sick to their stomach when they think of buying them. “So, oil stocks – pass them over (and pass the Tums), right?” he writes. “Not so fast. That sick, sinking feeling in your gut may be uncomfortable, but how you respond to it likely determines how successful you are as an investor. And in the dozen-plus years I’ve spent studying history’s most successful and famous investors, I’ve found that the greatest minds of Wall Street don’t consider such sinking feelings as a reason for panic. Instead, they consider them signs of opportunity.”

Reese says that when stocks are making big moves, people start acting emotionally rather than rationally. “We ignore things such as valuation and balance sheets. We avoid stocks altogether, or we fall prey to guilt by association – avoiding broad groups of equities even though every company and every stock is different,” he says.

Reese uses his Guru Strategies, each of which is based on the approach of a different investing great, to find good oil stocks that have gotten hurt because of guilt by association in both Canada and the US. Among those he highlights: Helmerich & Payne, which gets high marks from his Benjamin Graham-based strategy.