Investors battered by market upheaval, including a 6% stock slide in recent weeks, have a new mantra for their portfolios: preserve, protect and defend. But they should be prepared to pay up. Ray Bartkus The price of portfolio safety is soaring. Low interest rates and high market volatility make it more expensive to construct products offering income guarantees, downside protection, and other sleep-at-night features. On top of that, Wall Street firms, still skittish from the financial crisis, are reluctant to offer generous guarantees. It all adds up to a dubious proposition for safety-seeking investors: Pay more for less. Consider the most straightforward of "safe" investments. With the Federal Reserve holding short-term interest rates close to zero, the seven-day yield on taxable money-market funds recently sank to a record low 0.02%, and the average six-month bank certificate of deposit yields less than 0.5%. Risk-averse savers looking to improve on those rock-bottom rates find a panoply of often confusing and increasingly expensive options.[Read more...]