Mark Perkins sends: This is in response to comments talking about cash being the best safe haven in a down market or to protect against a 10% correction…

The problem with going mostly to cash is you never know when the stock market is going to switch into bull mode, and in seeking protection by ignoring stocks you’re sacrificing the best asset class in history with far and away the highest average historical returns. I’m in for the long term. It is hard enough to predict stock prices, let alone the entire market. The best anyone can do in my opinion is buy companies and/or indexes that sell for less than their intrinsic value.

There are names out there you should feel safe buying. I mentioned Fortune Brands (FO), which outperformed the market during the last recession. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) is trading at its lowest valuation since 1993. Many good names in the financial sector have been heavily sold off.
Clayton Gardner also has a list of stocks that he thinks will outperform in any market that is worth a look over.

Not just an ordinary credit card, but having secured credit cards that should be low interest credit cards is very important, specially when the cash debt ratio is very high and something as simple as student credit cards is being looked for.