LIKE CHESS, WHEN

it comes to investing, it helps to see the whole board. For example, I was trumpeting the virtues of emerging market stocks back in

, when most of the world was still heavy into index funds and Cisco.

These days, it's the so-called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) economies that are getting all the headlines. But from my perch, even these now followed and much-beloved emerging markets are mere sideshows compared with what's going on elsewhere. My screen isn't tracking BRIC, but the "three Cs": Credit, Commodity and Currency.

Credit

Credit, as I mentioned years

, is derived from the Latin "to believe." The entire banking and credit system is based on belief in a bond, a currency and the free flow of capital.

Yet as an asset class, that belief appears to be failing. The stocks most certainly are, and ominously, so are a few of the actual institutions.

A few weeks ago, we saw a run on Northern Rock, a large mortgage bank in the U.K. which only abated after a public bailout from the Bank of England. In the U.S., mortgage lender Countrywide Financial fell 50% until it rallied in late August, when Bank of America announced a $2 billion equity investment. Shares of Countrywide have fallen some 30% since then; Bank of America's have fallen by 7%.

No banks failed in the U.S. in 2005 and 2006. But that changed in 2007, when tiny Metropolitan Saving Bank of Pittsburgh failed this February. Then, with $2.3 billion in deposits NetBank (OTC: NTBKQ) filed for bankruptcy in September. The Miami Valley Bank in Lakeview, Ohio, followed in early October.

Back in June, I had minimum knowledge of Northern Rock and didn't know much about how a structured investment vehicle (SIV) even operated. If you had asked me about Gordian Knot, one of the largest SIVs, I'd probably have offered that it was a way you wear your necktie. In June, all I knew was all that mattered: that the stocks were uniformly weak. And they've been that way ever since.

Beyond banking stocks, there's the greater credit market. And although my gut would love to short Treasury bonds in a long-term bet on higher rates, there's a real bid for quality, and thus the real risk of getting caught short during a flight into bonds.

Commodities

These days, commodity markets are extremely well followed, especially oil, which has become a sort of financial Rorschach test. Everyone, from the economist to the politician to the housewife has an opinion they are eager to share.

There are scapegoats aplenty, from Bush to Bernanke, Greenspan to Greenpeace, Saudi Arabia to Schlumberger or the sagging greenback. Let the talking heads opine on the politics, the trader should follow the chart. Gold is at 28-year highs.

That used to be the rub against buying gold. The Morningstar analysts and strict fundamental guys would avoid investing in gold based on its terrible long-term performance. With gold more than having doubled since 2001, they don't really have that leg to stand on anymore. Crude oil is at an all-time high, as is platinum, and to a frustratingly lesser degree, palladium.

Like it or not, commodities have a bid. You might not care to buy it, but I surely wouldn't bet against it. Gold and oil might not double again, but in a real bull market, another 25%, 30% or 40% move is extra gravy you barely even notice.

When a market trends, the trend tends to persist, both on the upside and down. I think of Chico's, a former highflier that's become the sad "it'll come back" ugly suitcase in far too many portfolios. It's down 57% from its high reached last spring, and this is one much-beloved favorite that I have a strong feeling Ma and Pa have been buying the whole way down.

Currency

Finally, there's the currency market, which has continued to perform as a strong asset class across a number of market environments. When the stock market is rising, the dollar has tended to fall, which is perfectly logical considering most of the equity leadership has been from

Coca-Cola

McDonald's

Procter & Gamble

FX, at least from my perspective, seems to have a strong bid even when stocks are weak. It was way back in August that I first noted how the asset class was serving as a "refuge" from the credit crisis.

And while I'm most certainly talking my own book here, it would appear that FX as an asset class, or as one of my readers put it very effectively, ABD (Anything But the Dollar), is one of the most prominent and timely trends on the board.

Volumes in securities such as the CurrencyShares I've written about extensively are up, but still rarely break 100,000 shares a day. Needless to say, Energy Select Sector SPDR trades 20 million shares...on a slow day. Still, across a multitude of news stories and market environments, FX is finding excuses to lead.

From a behavioral perspective, I'm also encouraged the fact that the weak dollar is still being seen as a catalyst for the story, be it credit crunch, oil/gold or large-cap stocks, rather than the story itself. People are talking about it as a jolly sidekick, not the leading man.

In fact, I think one of the best securities to own right now in general would be the yen, as evidenced by the price action of CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust. No only has it served as an effective hedge for U.S. stocks, but has also provided absolute return, having gained almost 6% since mid-February. That's a real winning trade.

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.