Safety Net

How can you construct a financial investment strategy to protect yourself ... yet still get the growth to ensure a solid financial future and comfortable retirement during these turbulent times?

By building an investing safety net that gives you the gains needed for growth -- though more modest than those of past years -- but protection against the downside. So when turbulence strikes again -- and it will -- you won't re-live the financial nightmares of recent years when portfolios and 401Ks were devastated.

Jim Glassman provides the specifics you need for shrewd asset allocation, specifically:

• Reduce stock ownership. For those stocks you do own, ensure they meet one of these criteria: pay dividends; are low-priced and from industries of the future; or companies based in aspiring nations such as India, Brazil and China.

• Make a substantial investment in bonds, especially US Treasury TIPS bonds and corporate bonds

• Hedge against decline by owning a bear fund that shorts the US economy.

• Own funds based on other currencies, thus protecting yourself against the potential declining value of the US dollar.

• And consider derivatives. Yes, derivatives!