Last week we tried to identify some general lessons learned by investors during the market convulsion of the last year. Now let's try to figure out who the winners and losers were. You may think you know, but I'm betting you'll be surprised by the result.

If you thought the best thing to do was to own riskless U.S. Treasury bonds, you're wrong.

If you thought the best thing to do was to get out of the sinking U.S. stock market and into the soaring Chinese one, you're wrong again.

So what was right, and how do we know?

We have perfect hindsight on the crisis now. It's a simple matter to pick the one investment that fell the most and then rose the most, but all that will tell you is what would have happened if you'd been incredibly smart, or more likely, incredibly lucky. That won't do at all.

Instead, we need to admit that in the fog of crisis no one knew exactly what to do. We have to judge the performance of various investments by the criteria of our honest ignorance. We need to figure out which ones did the best even if we didn t have perfect timing. And just as important, because risk is just as critical to performance as return, we need to figure out which ones did the least bad just in case our timing was lousy.

Here's how you figure out which ones did the best without perfect timing. First, you define the period we're going to think of as the crisis; let's say it's from the beginning of July 2007, when Bear Stearns' early troubles first started to roil the financial markets, through yesterday.

All you have to do is see which investments are at all-time highs for that crisis period or, if none are, which one is closest. Of necessity, any investment that is now at all-time highs has no losers no matter when anyone bought it. After all, all possible prices in the past are lower than today's price. Everyone is a winner.

By that simple rule, you'd throw out Treasury bonds. Sure, while stocks got creamed in the panic, T-bonds soared. Stocks sure aren't at all-time highs but neither are T-bonds. In fact, the JP Morgan Long Term Treasury Index is off 11% from its crisis highs. Those highs occurred in mid-December last year when the 10-year yield got down to near 2%. If you thought bonds were a safe haven and bought them then, you're now down 11%, and that s after accounting for the interest you earned.

But wait, it's worse than that. If you bought the bonds in mid-December, you were really in a world of hurt in June when the 10-year yield hit 4%. At that point, your loss was 17%. Still, it was better than stocks, but it was not the safe haven that most people think -- not by a long shot.

So you want to know what the best investment was if not U.S. Treasury bonds? Are you sitting down? It was high-yield corporate bonds. That's right -- the kind most people call "junk bonds" -- the ones issued by companies with "below investment grade" ratings.

Of all the major asset classes, that's the one that is now at all-time highs. No matter when you bought them, today you have a profit.

Incidentally, I recommended buying junk bonds in this column back in January. They're up 32% since then.

OK, I know what you're saying. You're saying so what; stocks are up 48% since the March bottom. So isn't that even better? Sure, but that assumes you bought them exactly at the bottom. Stocks are still off 36% from their highs, so while there are definitely lucky winners in the stock market, there are probably more unlucky losers. You were better off in junk because you didn't have to be lucky. You just had to be there.

Besides, if you want to love stocks based on thinking you could have called the precise bottom, then you should love junk even more. If you called the precise bottom in junk, you'd be up 55%, which is better than the 48% you'd get in stocks.

And at its worst, junk was only off 35%. That's the most you could have lost even if you bought at the wrong moment and then sold at the wrong moment. For stocks, if you'd bought the top and sold the bottom, you'd be out 57%.

The same is also true with gold, which is another investment I've been recommending in this column throughout the crisis. It's not quite as perfect as junk bonds -- it's about 1% off all-time highs. So if you were especially unlucky and bought it during one of the few days during the crisis when it was higher, you'd have a tiny loss. But if you'd bought it at any other time, you are in the money.

If you bought it just perfectly, at its bottom last October, you'd be up 53% right now. And what was your worst loss if you were maximally unlucky? Only 35%, the same as junk.

Many of my clients ask me about Chinese stocks, because they've performed so well in the recovery from the panic over the last several months -- up 67% from the bottom. Well, I'm not impressed. That still leaves Chinese stocks off 53% from their highs. American stocks may have rallied less from the bottom, but they're only off 36% from the highs.

So when someone brags that he was a genius because he sold U.S. stocks two years ago at the top before the crisis hit and bought Chinese stocks instead, there's no reason to be jealous. If you stayed home, you're ahead. You're off 36% max, and your China stock-loving friend is off 67% max.

And, you took less risk along the way, too. At the worst, U.S. stocks were off 57%. For Chinese stocks, the worst was down 72%. Not exactly something to brag about, yet every day I hear people do just that. It just goes to show that markets always do what they have to do to fool you.

So let s recap: In a credit crisis, junk bonds did better than Treasury bonds -- in fact, they did the best of all. A yellow metal that some economists call a "barbaric relic" turned out to be nearly the best performer. In a recession where U.S. growth went sharply negative, stocks performed better than in China where growth stayed strongly positive. After these crazy two years, it's tempting to think that the best way to beat the market is to be a little crazy yourself. Believe me, I'm trying.