“现在该把钱投在什么地方？”《财富》杂志（Fortune）每年在投资者指南（Investor's Guide）中提出的问题一直都让人颇费思量。答案自然因人而异——你的财务状况，你的投资目标，你的风险承受度，计划投资时限和耐力。所有这些只有投资者本人才知道。

    但今年要答好这个问题尤其困难，因为全球金融市场比2008-09年美国市场暴跌、挤提担忧蔓延之时还要动荡。当时，似乎只有美国麻烦重重。现如今，不只美国还没有走出困境，欧元区很多大国也陷入了大麻烦。日本的问题由来已久，严重程度比我们只有有过之而无不及。还有，中国——但谁知道那里到底是个什么情况。又或者它的统计数据和公司财务报告到底有多可靠？

    虽然时不时地会有段好日子，但美国的情况并没有看上去那么美好。当形势这么不确定的时候，一般建议都是寻找避风港，以应对通胀和未来美元几乎确定无疑的贬值风险。一类传统的“安全”投资是债券，特别是美国国债。另一类避风港则是海外股票，海外公司共同基金以及（对于更具冒险精神和更成熟的投资者而言）外汇投资。接下来是大宗商品和“硬资产”，比如金、银、铜、石油和钻石，普遍认为如果美元继续贬值、通胀继续上升，这些商品和资产都能保值。

    如今，上述避风港——债券、海外股票、外汇和大宗商品——无一能给人哪怕一丝一毫的安全感。但不要绝望。我有一项策略或许管用，而且我自己已经付诸实施了。稍后我们将谈到这项策略。

    要想知道投资世界已变得如何之疯狂，看看美国股市就可见一斑（当然，前提是你的神经足够强大，能承受这个市场的跌宕起伏）。感恩节那周的四个交易日内，市场一改往日长假前的昏昏欲睡之态，罕见地出现了大跌，标准普尔500指数重挫了近5%。但在接下来一周却又上涨了7.4%。市场就像过山车一样。

    前一天，欧洲四面楚歌——欧元注定将瓦解，大量欧洲银行也岌岌可危，这些就像金融界的蘑菇云一样，必然会给美国经济带来剧烈冲击。市场惨淡，人人自危。然而第二天却又传来一个据说可行的解决方案。市场随即飙升。但是谁能知道明天或者下周会是什么情况？

    要想预测美国经济，特别是美国就业市场，也已几乎成为了一项不可能完成的任务。美国的大型企业——也就是那些总部位于美国的大公司，“美国的”一词意味着这些企业对这个国家仍感到有一定的归属感和责任感——总体利润和现金水平均创新高，但在美国国内没有进行太多招聘。伙计们，真得好好谢谢你们。

    It's never easy to answer the question that Fortune poses in its annual Investor's Guide: Where should you put your money now? The response, of course, depends on your individual situation -- your finances, your goals, your tolerance for risk, your time horizon, and your staying power. All of which only you can know.

    This year it's far more difficult than usual for anyone to answer this question, because the financial world is even more unstable than it was in 2008-09, when U.S. markets were in free fall and fear ran rampant. Back then, only the U.S. seemed scarily messed up. Now not only is the U.S. still messed up, but substantial countries in the eurozone are mega-messed up. Japan has serious long-term problems, even worse than ours. And China -- well, who knows what really goes on there, or how reliable its statistics and company financial reports are?

    Despite good days here and there, things in the U.S. aren't all that wonderful. At a time when things are so uncertain here, the standard advice is to seek safety, and to protect yourself against inflation and the almost certain future decline of the dollar. One traditional "safe" investment is bonds, especially Treasury bonds. Another haven is foreign stocks or foreign-company mutual funds, and -- for the more venturesome and sophisticated -- foreign currencies. Then there are commodities and "hard assets" such as gold, silver, copper, oil, and diamonds that will presumably hold their value if the dollar's decline continues and inflation rises.

    None of those options -- bonds, foreign stocks and currencies, and commodities -- feel even remotely safe these days. But don't despair. I do have one strategy that you may find useful and that I've adopted myself. We'll get to it in a bit.

    For an example of how wild and crazy the investment world has become, take a look at the U.S. stock market (assuming that you have a stomach strong enough to withstand the lurching). For the four trading days of Thanksgiving week, a normally sleepy holiday period rarely associated with turkey markets, the S&P 500 fell almost 5%. The following week it rose 7.4%. Whipsaw City.

    One day the news out of Europe is dire -- the euro is doomed, as are many European banks, with toxic fallout certain to hit the U.S. economy like a radioactive financial cloud. Markets swoon. Panic reigns. The next day there's a supposed fix. Markets soar. Tomorrow or next week, who knows?

    The U.S. economy, especially the job market, is also almost impossible to predict. Big American companies -- make that big companies based in the U.S., because "American" implies that the companies feel some loyalty to this country -- are collectively showing record profits and record levels of cash, but aren't doing much hiring here. Thanks, guys.