With the U.S. economy and the stock markets continuing their freefalls, investors may be tempted to resort to a Depression-era financial vehicle: their mattresses.

Indeed, the economic indicators are bleak. Government officials recently updated the estimate of the decline in the nation's fourth-quarter GDP to a bone-chilling 6.2% from an already startling 3.8%. Approximately 2.6 million Americans lost their jobs last year, which is more people than live in Houston, the fourth-largest U.S. city. And, the Dow recently hit lows not seen in more than a decade, with many expecting further declines.

This "Great Recession," as some are calling it, is just one crop-destroying Dust Bowl shy of being the defining moment of a generation. If you're worried—as you should be—about how all this will affect your clients, then cheer up: According to top strategists, there is still value to be found outside the U.S., and in the emerging markets most of all.

The global search for value will take you to far-flung areas of the globe, including the gold mines of Australia and South Africa, as well as the bond markets of Germany. You'll also likely be looking to the much discussed fertile ground of China, with a possible pit stop in Norway.

But the first hurdle will be the general idea of investing abroad. Even today, after years of talking about the globalizing economy, most investors, whether based in the U.S. or not, generally have too great a "home bias" in their equity portfolios, says Jeff Applegate, chief investment officer at Citi Global Wealth Management. "People are not taking advantage of the global opportunity the way they should." Of all the non-U.S. investment opportunities, Applegate says he likes the emerging markets in particular, and currently has an overweight position in the developing world.

Applegate acknowledges the bear market makes equities a tough sell for recently burned investors, but notes that global equities still offer value in the longer term. "When the market gets to recovery, then the world of globalization we've put in place by creating the WTO, NAFTA and so on, does not go away," he says. "Broadly speaking, globalization is an opportunity that's still there."

But Even in Emerging Markets, Be Selective

Beyond their potential for growth, emerging markets have simply held up better in the most recent market drop. Applegate notes that, out of all the stock markets in the world, only those in emerging markets managed not to undercut their November 2008 lows in early March 2009. Investors sold off U.S. equities and those of developed countries due to a lack of confidence in central bankers' ability to create policies to stabilize the world's economy. But, those same investors took less money off the table in the emerging markets.

Emerging markets may also benefit from the age-old idea of the pendulum swinging too far. Uri Landesman, who runs global growth investing at ING Investment Management in New York, is bullish on the emerging markets. Why? Well, he believes investors overdid their flight to safety, dropping prices to very attractive levels. Taking a contrarian view, he is a fan of commodities, largely due to the efforts of the world's central bankers to stanch the economic bleeding.

"Everything the central banks are doing is going to be inflationary," Landesman says. "They're all torpedoing the values of their own currencies, and that will bring a flight from soft assets [including financial instruments such as stocks and bonds] to hard assets. Investors will dump currencies and buy commodities."

One of the biggest winners of this trend will be gold, and countries that mine it, including Canada, Australia and South Africa, Landesman says. But he also likes other commodities, such as industrial metals and energy. Following that logic, he is led to Brazil, a major commodity-producer that has bountiful reserves of iron ore and oil. In the past, this lack of diversity—those two sectors make up half of the Brazilian stock market—has been a weakness. But Landesman says it will now push Brazil ahead of its commodity-producing fellows in the emerging markets, such as India.

In fact, he is particularly negative on India, a former Wall Street darling and, along with Brazil, Russia and China, part of the ballyhooed BRIC countries. He sees the former powerhouse as especially vulnerable to his expected commodity price boom, since the country is a net importer of raw materials. In addition, he notes, India is hurt by its role a big trade partner of the U.S., particularly in data services. Among those companies' biggest clients are U.S. financial services firms, which have been devastated by the recent economic crash. Although Wall Street has not completely closed shop, it has sharply reduced its contracts with Indian companies.