With stock prices near decade lows and fear at generational highs, many market participants are looking for harbors in the storm -- and turning their eye from high risk growth stock opportunities to what are generally more conservative income ideas.

For those looking to broaden their holdings to include yield-generated income, we turned to a dozen leading newsletter advisors who in turn offered a wide variety of income-oriented ETF and fund favorites.

Yes, fixed income holdings have their own risks. But in general, a diversified portfolio -- balanced between stocks and bonds -- has proven a more defensive posture. In addition, the selections in this report are funds and ETFs; as such the investments themselves are diversified among many holdings.

While researching opinions for a column I'm writing about people's current retirement attitudes, I've been led to one particularly important question: what would I myself do if I had money to invest for retirement?

The first part of my answer is simple. I have a fairly well performing 401k account through my employer and I stick as much money in that account as I can stand. But what if I had excess funds which I wanted to put into safe haven for the future, what would I do right now? At this point, I believe the option I would use is Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS).

You must understand that I hate bonds. I hate them because I think that they're typically very lazy. They generally pay low rates of return and they sometimes lack liquidity. However, with today's extreme investment volatility, I have come to recognize the intrinsic wisdom of government backed bonds. The nice thing about TIPS is that they come with inflation protection built right in.

I did a little research, and I found a short discussion about TIPS funds at CNN Money.com. The article mentions a TIPS fund which is managed by Vanguard, a name which I place a fairly high degree of trust in. The article indicates that the Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities Fund (VIPSX) has an acceptable rate of return and low operating fees. If I had a large sum of cash which I just wanted to place in a save haven until this bear market runs its course, I believe that this Vanguard fund might be one of my first choices.

"Like other US Treasuries, Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPs) have virtually no credit risk," explains fund expert Mark Salzinger.

The editor of The No-Load Fund Investor adds, "Unlike other US Treasuries beyond short-term bills, however, TIPs also have no inflation risk." Here, he looks at an EYF based on TIPs.

"Twice a year, TIPs' principal valuis are adjusted upward by the amount of the increase in the Consumer Price Index Urban (CPI-U), thus protecting their holders against increases in inflation.

"The total return of the bond equals its yield plus the change in principal value based on inflation, changes in real interest rates (published interest rates minus inflation) and supply-demand in the market for TIPs.

"TIPs' yields are lower than those of regular Treasury sercurities of similar maturities. That's one of the disadvantages of TIPs.

"The other is that any increase in principal value due to the biannual inflation adjustment gets taxed every year as if it were received income.

"In a new paradigm where risk will become a paranoid obsession with investors, a few TIPS make sense for income," says long-standing advisory industry expert Curtis Hesler.

In his The Professional Timing Service, he highlights the role of Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities within a long-term portfolio and reviews two ways for investors to purchases these issues.

"You can buy them in your Treasury Direct account. If you don't have a Treasury Direct account, you can open one at www.treasurydirect.gov. The problem is that so far, you can't open a retirement account - only an individual account. Go to the Treasury Direct Web site and bone up on all the details, especially if you are going to buy them online.

"TIPS work this way. They are U.S. government bonds issued by the Treasury. They are marketable in that you can sell them in the 'after' market. They come in terms of 5, 10, and 20 years. The interest rate on an issue is determined at auction, and they are sold in increments of $1,000.