It has been a tough year for investors. We have been dealing with recession fears, housing market worries, high gasoline prices and a very weak U.S dollar. As much as we would love to say that the worst is behind us, we still could be in for some more rocky times ahead. So its best to try to figure out which stocks would be best to avoid for the time being.

Richard Gibbons wrote up a nice piece over on The Motley Fool that looks at some of the stocks that we would be wise to stay away from at this time. Regardless good or bad times, he is convinced there are always ways to make money, but in order to find the winners, it is also necessary to pull out the losers.

So how can we separate out the winners from the losers?

Gibbons seems to have a simple answer for this. He believes there is really no use in wasting our time trying to separate the winners from the losers as there are so many great cheap stocks that could offer us a chance to make money. Gibbons' advice is to not choose ugly and risky companies that could put our hard earned money at risk. To makes this clear, he uses a baseball analogy, expressing his options for the curve balls instead of the fastballs.

Gibbons runs away from companies such as Ambac Financial Group Inc. (NYSE: ABK) whose stock value has been in free fall, dropping from around $95 to $5 over the past year. While some investors may see this as the perfect opportunity to buy up some cheap stock, he warns that this company may not even survive, much less rebound and pull in profits for new investors. Following the same logic, he points out financial operators like Washington Mutual Inc. (NYSE: WM) or homebuilders such as Pulte Homes Inc. (NYSE: PHM) from which investors should stay away until they are sure that the housing and credit markets have bottomed.

But there are some stocks out there that are worth considering according to Gibbons. He points out CME Group Inc. (NYSE: CME) for which he is not concerned about major negative effects amid a possible recession. As the company runs two of the world's biggest options and futures exchanges, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade, it's likely to benefit from a powerful competitive advantage.

Although health insurers have faced tough times recently, all their concerns are seen as short-term problems. Both Cigna Corp. (NYSE: CI) and Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) saw their shares falling on worries about rising medical costs, but Gibbons anticipates a nice recovery.

As a last bit of advice, Gibbons recommends investors spend more time on their investing, and be more careful during their trade selections. When examining the balance sheet, we should take into account both the challenging market conditions and the company's debts and accounts receivable.

You can find some more safe havens in a rough market in our writeup last week on seven stocks to own over the next seven years.

The important thing to remember, is that in the current market environment we have to be more careful, and make sure to limit risk if we want to hit a home run with our investments.

Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.