Imagine that you are out at sea and steaming ahead at full speed. Life is good and you are enjoying the high life. Unfortunately your boat runs into the storm of the century. This is a storm that not even your luxury cruiser makes it through. Wave after wave crashes upon you and you are sinking and fast.

The very unfortunate thing is that most of us who are invested in the stock market today don’t need much of an imagination to understand what this situation is like. The past year has been a category five hurricane for the average investor. The storms have been swirling all around and with these storms have come an almost unprecedented destruction of wealth. This came after a very frothy period for the markets with record stock market returns and so most investors had become very complacent with their portfolios. Unfortunately this is a hard way to learn that diversifying also means picking up some alternative investments.

As an investor looking for calm in the rough waters you need to move beyond stocks. A Forex trading system or commodity futures trading, along with a whole host of other investments such as exchange-traded funds that benefit from a declining market, should be added to your portfolio. Doing this will provide you with dry land and shelter in the midst of the agony and financial destruction that is all around you these days.