An Obama Market: What Stocks Could Fare Best

With a new administration will come a new complexion for the stock market, and investors in alternative energy, technology and infrastructure could be among the biggest beneficiaries.

CNBC.com Barack Obama

While the market has been anything but predictable in the era of fear that has gripped Wall Street over the past year, a look at President-elect Barack Obama's priorities provides a glimpse into what should be the movers and shakers on Wall Street.

• Who Might Fill Some Key Cabinet Roles
• Who Will Be the Next Treasury Secretary?

In a broad sense, market pros see public enthusiasm over the Obama White House combining with a severely undervalued stock market to generate at least a bit of a sustained relief rally.

"I think it's a great day for America, and believe me that cannot be bad for the financial markets," Jack Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group, said on CNBC this morning.

Yet Bogle wasn't unbridled in his optimism for the path ahead, signaling that investors still need to be cautious about where they're placing their bets.

"I'm feeling a lot better about the market," he said, but added, "I'm feeling concerned about the economy, because what goes on in our economy hurts real people." See Bogle's full comments in the video below.

It all adds up to a tricky investing climate ahead that is inspiring some conflicted feeling from market analysts.

Energy

Obama's energy policies, which likely will emphasize alternatives like wind and solar and turn away from fossil fuels, will be one of the biggest factors in playing the market.

Interestingly, some of the biggest names in alternative energy were getting clobbered in trading the day after the election. But that could well have been because they had such a huge run-up in anticipation of an Obama victory that there was bound to be some downdraft following his win.

• Obama's Energy Policies at a Glance

In fact, some were attributing Wednesday's overall selloff as just another chapter in the buy-the-rumor-sell-the-news trend in the market.

"The selloff today has nothing to do with Obama. We've moved up 19 percent from the bottom," says Dave Rovelli, head of US equity trading for Canaccord Adams. "This is just some profit-taking."

Rovelli sees alternative energy as a good play going forward to cash in on the new administration's emphasis on green technologies.

Indeed, leaders  in the sector including Suntech Power and First Solar gained more than 50 percent in the week prior to the election, before tumbling Wednesday.

"We don't own too many energy stocks in general. They had such a huge runup last year," says Mike Burnick, director of research at Weiss Capital Management. "I think you are going to see some interesting opportunities in solar and wind power."

Natural gas also is expected to benefit, with Chesapeake Energy among the leading companies.

"This administration will be very favorably inclined to try to do something about introducing natural gas into the transportation network in a more aggressive way than what has happened in the past four to eight years," Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon told analysts last week.

Health Care

Pharmaceutical  companies in particular are the subject of some debate: Will Obama follow through on a tenet in his health care plan that will cap how much drug-producers can charge for their products? Or will such dramatic initiatives have to wait while the new president fixes the economy?

Count Burnick in the camp that thinks drug stocks present significant value to investors.

• Obama's Ambitious Health-Care Policies

"Health care certainly has been a favorite sector of ours for quite a while, not just because of the obvious demographic trends but because health care has been out of favor for the past 10 years," he says. "Even after the health care bubble burst it was still in the doghouse for some time."

He likes industry leaders such as Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson to lead the group back. Burnick says any major changes to health care probably will be delayed and may already be priced into the market.

An Obama victory also could get consumer confidence out of its doldrums and help a variety of sectors.

"The good news is the American public got the change they wanted yesterday," says Peter Miralles, president of Atlanta Wealth Management. "Consumer confidence is at all-time lows. We should see consumer confidence start to rise here, at least during the honeymoon."

CONTINUED : Buy Tech; Defense and Financials Not So Much

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