If you believe a few respected money managers, there's opportunity aplenty in stocks now. If you find that surprising, wait until you hear where they think the bargains lurk: big blue chips that almost always fetch premium prices.

Legendary bear Jeremy Grantham of GMO LLC in Boston says the U.S. faces "seven lean years" of meager growth, but he has been pounding the table about blue chip bargains with big dividends. Steven Romick of FPA Crescent predicts rising taxes and an economic malaise but is singing the praises about "bigger is better" stocks now, too.

"If you're worried about a feeble economy you want to own companies with strong balance sheets," says T2 Partner's Whitney Tilson, who is loading up on big, multinational companies though he doubts the market will rise much for a while. "The beauty today is those companies are on sale."

Blue chips are always in the news. They're widely owned by pension funds and by individual investors in index funds, and heavily covered by Wall Street analysts. They're the companies that sell beer and medicine. They're the banks where people put their money. They make tractors and computer software. And they typically trade at premium prices, so sometimes are shunned by contrarians like the three above who have been bearish when others are bullish.