Playing Defense Amid Debt Drama

Investors Turning To Israel, Lehman In Hunt for Refuge From Market Woes

ArticleBy MATT WIRZ

The hunt for the perfect trade has some investors straying far from the herd.

They are scouring the nooks and crannies of the investing world, making bets on Israeli bonds, the fate of Iceland’s banking system and the likelihood of payouts from the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings.

Their quest is to find investments where the value isn’t beholden to the broader market swings fueled by debt woes in Europe and political battles in the U.S. Historically, investors relied on commodities like oil and gold, or hedges such as options to provide ballast against market swings. Lately, though, those assets have tended to move much more in lockstep, a phenomenon known as correlation.

via Abreast of the Market: Scouring the Globe for Uncorrelated Trades – WSJ.com.