If you haven’t heard, last week was one of the worst weeks for the market in years. The Dow dropped almost 600 points and the rest of the market generally followed suit. Many investors are still a little nervous as to the markets outlook, and it only rebounded a little today.

Instead of being nervous, sophisticated investors will see this downturn as a unique opportunity to pick up some stocks at what might be called, bargain prices. This doesn’t mean that you should just go out and buy anything that has dropped significantly in price. You should still look to buy quality investments.

For example, I saw this downturn as an opportunity to pick up shares of Citigroup Inc. (C). It’s a solid company with a history of solid earnings. They pay a nice dividend which at the current price yields around 4.6%. The best part is that after last week’s sell off, the stock is trading around its 52 week low. Obviously there’s no sure thing in the market, but it looked like a bargain to me.

I’m sure there are plenty of other opportunities out there after last week, it’ll just take a little effort on your part to find them.

There’s one other important thing to note. Most people see a market sell off, like the one last week, as a reason to panic, and they fear they’re going to lose money. We should consciously remind ourselves, however, to look at them as opportunities instead. It is a tough mindset to develop, but the earlier the better.

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