Sep. 22--Where others see tumult and fear, Peter S. Lautmann sees a beckoning sign: Quality for sale.

Shares of many U.S. global leaders are selling at discounts, the likes of which haven't been seen in almost 15 years, says Lautmann, a principal at Kitzinger Lautmann Capital Management Inc. in Milwaukee.

"You don't have to be a hero here, and you don't have to go too far out on the risk spectrum," Lautmann said. "The bottom line is it's an excellent time to average into stocks in the context of a reasonable allocation you can sleep with."

The credit crunch and complicated mortgage packages full of surprises have made it difficult for investors to know what they really have with AIG and some of the other big financials, Lautmann said.

But many big U.S. companies outside the financial industry have much more understandable businesses and prospects for decent returns, he said.

You wouldn't know it, though, from their valuations. Just look at the Dow Jones industrial average.

The Dow's average price-to-earnings ratio -- not including troubled Citigroup Inc. -- is 13 compared with 33 times earnings at the end of 1999, Lautmann said. The Dow's dividend yield, excluding Citigroup, is 3.7% vs. 1.3% at the end of 1999, he said.

The broader-based Standard & Poor's 500 index has had virtually no price appreciation for more than a decade. Yet the S&P's average earnings and dividends have doubled, Lautmann said.

"That's what makes stocks so appealing, and sentiment so poor," he said. "We're not calling a bottom here because we're not that smart, but we think we're in a bottoming process."

We're probably already in a recession, which could last into the middle of next year, Lautmann said. But investors who believe the bottom isn't going to fall out may want to be buying.

Lautmann says he and his colleagues have been buying a number of global leaders that have what they believe are solid growth opportunities, particularly in developing markets.

All of these companies have "tremendously strong" balance sheets and free cash flow, he said. Many offer better dividend yields than fixed-income securities such as money markets and Treasuries.

"You're not going to shoot the lights out with them, but they're super quality and you're going to get good returns with moderate risk over time," Lautmann said.

Among the companies his firm is holding are:

3M Co. (MMM, $72.68), St. Paul, Minn., is in electronics, telecommunications, industrial consumer and office, and other markets. Its shares have traded as high as $97 and as low as $67.26 in the last 52 weeks.