So, thinking about safety lately?

No surprise. With market volatility on the rise, thanks to the nasty mix of Japan's catastrophic earthquake and related nuclear problems combined with the seething crises rolling across the Middle East and North Africa, capital preservation has suddenly become more popular.

Dave Whammond, after Munch

Before we get to strategies focused on dealing with a rougher environment, it's important to note that many individual investors tend to bail out of markets at bottoms. They also get too greedy at the top.

With that in mind, let's look at 10 investments that ought to gain traction if things get rocky in the market.

1. Federated Prudent Bear Fund: This is one of the most veteran bear-market funds, launched at the end of 1995. It doesn't just short stocks but, rather, mixes a mostly short portfolio with some "long" bets. The fund (BEARX) is down more than 5.7% this year, but it has edged up 3% in the last month.

2. Food stocks: As the Wall Street saw says: "People gotta eat." Along with Kraft, popular food (and drink) stocks that get more attention during market turbulence include Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP), Kellogg (K) and General Mills (GIS).

One caveat: Rising food prices have hit profit margins.

3. Utilities: Utilities can count on (mostly) regulated profits, and they pay good dividends. That's a combination that pays the investor to ride through difficulties, even if utilities shares retreat -- as some did last week in the wake of the Japanese nuclear disaster.

Two ways to play this: You could invest in a utilities-focused fund, such as the iShares Dow Jones U.S. Utilities ETF (IDU), which tracks the 15-stock Dow Jones Utility Average. Or you could look at a basket of high-dividend payers such as Duke Energy (DUK), Dominion Resources (D) or Xcel Energy (XEL).

4. Vice: One of the original novelty funds, the Vice Fund (VICEX) is built on the premise that people who smoke and drink tend to keep that going on a consistent basis -- until they quit or die. Vice Fund owns tobacco companies Altria (MO) and Lorillard (LO) and brewer SABMiller (SBMRY).

But the fund likes ammo, too. That has it exposed to defense contractors General Dynamics (GD) and Raytheon (RTN), which have a more volatile outlook, especially given the government's fiscal challenges.

5. Treasurys: This is a more cautious approach, but sometimes it helps the evening sleep if you park a bit of cash in something super-safe, like U.S. Treasurys. You should look at parking some money in shorter-term Treasurys rather than in longer-term ones. You can purchase direct at There's also the iShares Barclays 1-3 Year Treasury Bond exchange-traded fund. It has an apt symbol: SHY.

6. Drug stocks: These companies have come in for a bit of a battering from the Obama administration, but they are still considered solid defensive stocks. During recent selloffs, Merck (MRK), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Pfizer (PFE) have held up decently, though they've certainly had bad days. And they all pay dividends in the 4% range.

7. Cheap restaurants: People still like to go out, but they may dial back their ambitions. Fast-food chain McDonald's (MCD) has struggled in the home market, but it's often a flight-to-safety name during a correction. More intriguing is Yum! Brands (YUM), which owns Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. Its stock has done better than McDonald's during the recent volatility.

8. Short ETFs: One way to "hedge" against a downdraft is to deploy some assets into an ETF that makes a big bet on a market decline. The ProShares UltraShort S&P500 (SDS) is "double" short the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. Similarly, the ProShares UltraShort QQQ (QID) is "double" short the Nasdaq 100 Index, which is filled with all your favorite tech names like Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MFST) and Cisco Systems (CSCO).

Warning: A "double" short fund would turn a 1% decline into a 2% gain, but if the market starts going up again, these funds provide double the pain in that direction.

9. Gold or silver: With television ads for gold everywhere, this idea may be getting long in the tooth. But it still seems to work. The two simplest ways to hedge your position with some silver or gold (don't go all in!), are the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD) and the iShares Silver Trust ETF (SLV).

10. Cash: It doesn't pay much, but nobody can take cash away from you. Topping up the cash reserves may give an investor that sometimes elusive gift: a good night's sleep.

—Dave Kansas is The Journal's chief markets commentator in New York. Blog: Email:

Corrections & Amplifications
The Federated Prudent Bear fund has a short bet against Kraft and Procter & Gamble, according to its most recent filings. A previous version of this column incorrectly reported that the fund was long in the two stocks.