Betting on a Long, Hard Slog

If you formed your opinions based solely on the headlines in the financial press, you'd think that there are only two possible scenarios in the current environment. The first possibility is that equities are extremely undervalued and headed for a tremendous surge, and U.S. jobs engine is now firing on all cylinders and pushing the economy higher. The other is that the U.S. is on the brink of a double-dip recession that's going to send prices for risky assets tumbling -- and the mounting debt burdens around the globe and crises in Europe are going to swallow up global equity markets. Seemingly, there is no in-between.

It's easy to come up with a long list of actionable investment ideas for either of those scenarios. There are a number of high-volatility products that should perform well if risk appetite remains strong and numerous safe havens, and bear ETFs that should be expected to post solid gains if the U.S. head back into recession. What's a bit more challenging is picking out asset classes that can deliver superior risk adjusted returns if a more likely scenario plays out -- a long, slow road to recovery, marked by steady growth in jobs and gross domestic product but with ongoing anxiety over the numerous risks dotting the landscape....441 more words left in this article. To read them, just click below and try Real Money FREE for 14 days.

Read the full story and get access to the Real Money Pro trading floor.

There’s no substitute for a trading floor to get great ideas, so Jim Cramer created a better one at Real Money and blogs there exclusively. We then added legendary hedge fund manager, Doug Kass, with his exclusive Daily Diary and best investing ideas. Staffed with more than 4 dozen investing pros, money managers, journalists and analysts, Real Money Pro gives you a flood of opinions, analysis and actionable trading advice found nowhere else, and allows you to interact directly with each expert.

Already a Subscriber? Please login.

Except as otherwise indicated, quotes are delayed. Quotes delayed at least 20 minutes for all exchanges. Market Data provided by Interactive Data. Company fundamental data provided by Morningstar. Earnings and ratings provided by Zacks. Mutual fund data provided by Valueline. ETF data provided by Lipper. Powered and implemented by Interactive Data Managed Solutions.

TheStreet Ratings updates stock ratings daily. However, if no rating change occurs, the data on this page does not update. The data does update after 90 days if no rating change occurs within that time period.

IDC calculates the Market Cap for the basic symbol to include common shares only. Year-to-date mutual fund returns are calculated on a monthly basis by Value Line and posted mid-month.