Everbank MarketSafe

Everbank has a fantastic new product called a Marketsafe CD. Essentially you can choose either an S&P-based or gold buillon-based CD for 3 or 5 years, and you are guaranteed the greater of the S&P/gold appreciation or 100% of your principal. So for example, if you get the S&P-based account, and the S&P 500 gains 50% over the next 5 years, you make 50% in 5 years. But if the S&P 500 loses 10%, you still get back your initial investment (although it's now lost money because of inflation).

I don't care so much for the S&P-based account as I do for the gold-based account. For one, it should act as an inflation-hedge (we got a lot of it coming) and I actually like gold in this time when we are evidencing generally weak currencies - the dollar's heading south, the euro is a currency based on a failing political ideology and the Asian countries are desparately trying to force their currencies cheap.

Everbank also offers currency-based CDs, including offerings such as a Commodity CD, which is a CD based on currencies of four commodity-producing countries.

I wouldn't put a large part of your portfolio in any of these CDs, but I think such products offer the individual investor a great way to hedge against economic events.