WHAT BEGAN A year ago as weakness in select financial stocks has grown into a full-fledged global bear rout that has left virtually no pocket of the equity market unscathed.

Dividend payers and foreign stocks have crumbled alongside high-beta growth names. Indeed, the diversification benefits of international investing are worthless when stocks as an asset class are weak, and the 3% dividend thrown off by products like iShares Dow Jones Select Dividend Index are inconsequential when the fund itself drops by 30%. Same goes for covered-call strategies like Madison/Claymore Covered Call & Equity Strategy Fund or ING Global Advantage and Premium Opportunity Fund.

In fact, weakness in major indexes shows just how severe some of the internal damage has been. Beyond the upheaval in banks and financials, there are a ton of well-known and widely owned names at multi-year and even multi-decade lows. General Motors' slump to a 50-plus-year low has received plenty of coverage, but less so has been Home Depot's retreat to 2003 levels, Pfizer's drop to 10-year lows and International Paper's move back to where it was in 1987.

If you believe, as I do, that long-term strength starts in the short term, then there's simply not much to be excited about right now. Even Japanese stocks like Nippon Telegraph & Telephone and Hitachi, which I continue to own and find relatively appealing, have succumbed to the overall weakness in equities. Nothing is working, save for energy and Goldcorp.

Just about the only positive sign is that the headlines have gotten uniformly dour. Negative stories about oil and the economy dominate the financial press. To that end, the angry bear on the cover of Barron's is actually an encouraging sign.

Still, it's hard to make the case that we've reached a level of extreme pessimism similar to the late 1970s, when Business Week magazine famously announced "The Death of Equities" in its Aug. 13, 1979, issue. And technicians are eager to point out that the market's decline, while severe, hasn't yet culminated in a capitulation sell-off that would indicate a panic bottom.

Markets are constantly changing, and you can be assured that the picture for equities will be very different a year from now. But you need not buy the bottom tick of a move in order to profit from a move. And with virtually nothing working, it would seem the prudent move would be to wait at least a little while longer before diving into the swamp.

Rising Rates

Take a gander at the dividend yield on the common stock of

Bank of America

Dividend yields aren't the only income options that have been rising lately. Along with stocks, corporate paper of every quality has been hurt, pushing rates up. iShares iBoxx $ Invest Grade Corp Bond Fund, an ETF that tracks an index of corporate bonds, notched a lifetime low this past week, now yielding over 5%. The high-yield products are tracking lower as well, with iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond and SPDR Lehman High Yield Bond now yielding over 8% and 9% respectively, along with preferred stock funds like iShares S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index and Flaherty & Crumrine Preferred Income Opportunity Fund.

Lower Prices, Higher Yields

LQD, PFF, JNK, HYG 3 month

A few weeks ago I suggested a few ideas to prosper in an environment of rising interest rates, most of which have been losers amid a flight-to-quality bid in Treasurys and uncertainty over the Federal Reserve's next move. In fact, yields are climbing almost everywhere, except on super-safe government debt. I'm still in the camp that says this is a strategy that will pay off once the dust settles on stocks and the fear premium fades.

Under African Skies

Along with sparely populated Antarctica, Africa is last Wild West on Earth, as best evidenced by the virtual collapse of Zimbabwe's economy, which I

last week. The rest of the continent is equally underdeveloped: 36% of the population lives on less than $1 a day, and in the aggregate Africa is a poorer economy than it was in the early 1970s.

It's a bleak picture, but one that's surely full of opportunity for investors with some patience and tolerance for risk. Those looking for a high-yielding, albeit highly volatile, addition to their portfolio should consider WisdomTree's new South African Rand ETF.

I've owned the rand in the spot market in my hedge fund for a number of months now with moderate success, and can attest to the market's sharp moves. The rand is a true currency roller-coaster, having ranged from roughly 6.5 to 8 rand to the U.S. dollar over the past two years. This isn't a store of value; it's a financial firework.

Before the equity market began falling apart, it was the BRIC trades Brazil, Russia, India and China that garnered the most attention from emerging-markets investors. But why mess around with countries that are already on their way to first-world status? For the real frontier of the investment world, Africa is the only game in town.

Also See:

• Pack Doesn't Set the Pace or Price

• Carbon-Credit Trading Is Ultimate Rigged Game

• Markets, Not Formulas, Dictate Asset Allocation

Jonathan Hoenig is managing member at Capitalistpig Hedge Fund LLC. At the time of writing, Hoenig's fund held positions in many of the securities mentioned.