After the recent pounding that the subprime mortgage sector has been taking, you're probably not thinking about its investment opportunities. But that's what I'll be talking about on CNBC at 11 a.m. with Becky Quick and Tom Gardner of Motley Fool.

There are two reasons for thinking there might be opportunities here:

• Investment banking put - Investment banks are putting a floor under the stock price of many subprime lenders. For example, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS), Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: LEH) and Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. (NYSE: BSC) have all said they may commit more funds to subprime. Yesterday, Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. (NYSE: LEND) added $3.39, or 56%, to $9.43, helped by apparent takeover speculation in the wake of its statement Tuesday that it would explore "strategic options." On the pink sheets, New Century Financial rose 68 cents to $1.35, more than doubling its share price from a day earlier. NovaStar Financial Inc. (NYSE: NFI) is also up 50% since it bottomed out at $3.43 on Tuesday.
• Picking the long term survivors - Not every industry participant will be wiped out. For example, Countrywide Financial Corp. (NYSE: CFC) -- which only has 7% of its loans in subprime -- added $376 million in cash for a total of $1.4 billion in 2006. Nevertheless, it is far from being out of the woods: it recently reported a rise in bad loans across the board -- i.e., payments were 30 days late at the end of 2006 on 2.9% of prime home-equity loans serviced by CFC, up from 1.6% a year earlier and payments were late on 19% of subprime mortgage loans [subscription required], up from 15.2% at the end of 2005. If it reports worse than expected damage in future quarters, CFC will drop further, which could represent buying opportunities that lower an investor's cost basis. Despite the medium term pain of such a strategy, if CFC survives until the next housing upturn, investors will profit.

These strategies are not for the faint of heart. After all, the $1.3 trillion subprime mortgage market is experiencing a 13.3% default rate since 40% of the mortgages it originated are liar loans. Furthermore, when the loans were sold as Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), the buyers -- pension funds, insurance companies, and hedge funds -- got the right to force the mortgage originators to buy back bad loans. This could swamp the subprime lenders' meager capital.

Two other considerations: the worst is yet to come and the damage will be widespread. After all, $900 billion in adjustable rate mortgages -- including $650 billion from high-risk borrowers -- will reset in the next two years from the 5% teaser rates to as high as 12%, spreading the subprime damage. This damage will affect many parts of the country since 60% of U.S. zip codes have between 25% and 75% subprime home borrowers.

Update: The CNBC segment was canceled due to breaking news sourced by David Faber: Blackstone Group is going public.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the stocks mentioned.