As the turbulent economy continues to roil, investors likely will gravitate toward index-based, middle-of-the-road mutual funds, opening the door for opportunists to sweep up bargains, industry experts say. And the safer, the better.

"Investors are looking for plain vanilla opportunities," said Paul Disdier, director of municipal securities for The Dreyfus Corp., at the annual BNY Mellon Asset Management press briefing earlier this year in New York City. "Mutual funds provide a high degree of capital preservation."

Touting mutual funds as safe havens for tax-exempt income could be a great tactic for retirement plan providers over the next few years, particularly as baby boomers look for ways to preserve their assets, he said.

The current economic climate is providing a lot of opportunity for those who can afford to be greedy when others are fearful, to paraphrase from Warren Buffett. Liquidity providers who saw their supplies get sucked dry over the last few months are beginning to look for cash infusions, and smart hedge fund managers are already jockeying themselves for the right moment to sweep in to the rescue.

Bill Crerend, chief executive at EACM Advisors, a fund of funds manager, warned that it could be a long, choppy ride for all retirement plan participants, but there is an opportunity to secure assets that will ultimately be rewarding for "serious, thoughtful investors who've done their homework. This is one of those environments where investor quality is revealed."

As such, it's even more important for employers to provide comprehensive and reassuring retirement planning education and advice through a third-party provider. (See related coverage Riding the investment rollercoaster and Outrunning the bear.)

The sun will come out tomorrow. Despite the steep economic decline, all is not lost, experts say.

Although real estate prices may be gloomy in the United States, when you look at the situation from a global perspective, the sun is always shining somewhere. "All real estate is local," said Todd Briddell, chief investment officer for Urdang,a firm that manages private equity investments and portfolios of real estate securities,. "There is no such thing as a global real estate market." Globally, real estate markets like Hong Kong are doing very well, Briddell said. The biggest crisis in real estate has been the crisis in confidence, he said. There has been a lack of trust as the credit bubble deflates.

"Markets work just as efficiently when things are going down; it just doesn't feel good," he said. "Sometimes prices have to decline to clear the market."

"Real estate is driven by capital markets and by local supply and demand markets," Briddell said. "There is a huge opportunity for growth in places like western Canada, particularly in regard to the energy industry. Calgary and Edmonton markets are booming."

John Morgan is associate editor for Money Management Executive, an EBN sister publication.