There isn t a whole heck of a lot of risk when it comes to a CD or a savings account. The reason it s called speculation, however, is that despite all our research, analysis and observation, nobody ultimately knows why markets move.

Most unnerving is that trends will oftentimes unfold without any clear fundamental justification, something experience teaches you to overlook. What matters isn t why a market is moving, but how is it moving, and what our position happens to be in it at the time.

That disconnect is quite evident as of late when it comes to the $2.8 trillion market for municipal bonds, which despite increasingly stretched budgets and deficits (Warren Buffett has warned of a terrible problem for munis), prices for munis, and muni bond funds, continue to rise. Closed-end funds like BlackRock Municipal Bond Trust, Nuveen Insured Municipal Opportunity Fund and Nuveen Municipal Advantage Fund along with ETFs like iShares S&P National Municipal Bond and SPDR Barclays Capital Municipal Bond have all outperformed.

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CurrencyShares Japanese Yen (FXY) 2 years

Another asset breaking out -- and one in which I m actually participating -- is the Japanese yen, a long-held exposure that, after channeling for the better part of 18 months, is now poised to retest a multimonth high against the dollar. Tradable from any stock account via ETFs like CurrencyShares Yen or WisdomTree Dreyfus Japanese Yen, the yen rose Friday for its sixth straight day and is now up over 3.5% year to date.

On the one hand, the yen s strength shouldn t be that much of a surprise. Like the volatility-linked notes we wrote about in March, the yen s a safe haven that tends to jump with investor fear.

What s surprising is that at a time in which highly indebted countries like Greece and Italy are crumbling, Japan should arguably be following suit. The country s government debt load is staggering, now at 171% and potentially rising as high as 197% by 2015, by far the largest burden in the developed world. That s a safe haven?

The main difference is that Japan s deficit is financed primarily through the domestic savings of an extremely thrifty population, meaning Japan isn t as dependent on international borrowing as Europe. In fact, yields on government bonds have recently fallen to a seven-year low, indicating markets perceive the country as comparatively low risk and allowing deficits to be financed at a relatively reasonable cost.

The yen is easy asset to dismiss. It doesn t pay a dividend (a turn-off to many investors), it s tied to a slow-growing and highly indebted country, and it s just a fraction away from a 14-year peak. Yet a high market should, conceptually speaking, be a buy signal, not a sell sign. Don t forget it wasn t too long ago when many market observers viewed $1,000 gold as a ceiling. Now it s seen as a floor.

The point is that when an existing position in your portfolio begins leading the way, usually better to play that hand than indiscriminately throw it away. Because while it might sound curt or unsophisticated, at the end of the day the deficits, taxes, spending, monetary policy and political turmoil are immediately reflected in the one figure that actually matters: the price of the security itself. That s what we trade. That s what matters.

At the time of writing, Hoenig s fund held a position in the Japanese yen.