NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Investors these days are forgiven if they feel they've been forced into an unwelcome game of the lady or the tiger with what's left of their money.

Put it into stocks? They've put on a big rally, valuations have become stretched and, if the past three years have taught us anything, stocks can turn tail quickly. Bonds? Even after a nasty reversal over the past few weeks, yields are near 40-year lows, making Treasurys look awfully expensive.

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Cash? Money market funds are yielding below a half percent -- you'd have to have more than $10 million socked away to reasonably live off the interest. Real estate? Sure, housing's done great, but worries that the run is overdone abound, and, in any case, many investors already have most of their net worth tied up in their home.

Which asset classes end up ladies and which tigers is entirely dependent on what course the economy takes over the next several months. With the Fed signaling that it will, if pressed, resort to unconventional tactics and a massive amount of stimulus coming from Washington's tax package, optimism that a true recovery will finally come is running high.

But these positives still may not be enough to overcome the hangover effects from the excesses sown during the late 1990s. The potential for deflation is still there, and if it presents itself the investors who have kept their money in cash and bonds could be the happiest.

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An economic revival, on the other hand would be bad news for the mattress-stuffers -- and even worse news for bondholders. Even though the Fed has done its darndest to tell investors that it doesn't plan on raising rates until well after recovery begins, it wouldn't take long for worries about inflation to make their way into the bond market. And even without such worries, yields still seem unsustainably low to many investors -- some even contend that there's a bubble in bonds.

Bonds are hardly the only thing pronounced to be in a bubble these days. Handwringing over how housing is destined for a fall has been a staple of the financial press for years now. It certainly is difficult to see how home prices can keep surging. If the economy looks set to recover, and interest rates go up, houses will become far less affordable. But under an alternative scenario, where the economy continues to suffer, even more Americans will be out of work -- another big negative for the sector.

And then there are those who say investors are reinflating the bubble in stocks. It's hard to say that prices aren't steep. The price-to-earnings ratio for the S&P 500, based on the past year's profits, is 20. Don't allow for the exclusion of one-time charges and it comes in at 35. Meantime, investors are ploughing their money into some of the most dangerous-looking stocks there are. Sometimes it doesn't seem like anybody's learned a thing.

Or maybe the real tiger for investors is fear of tigers -- that overwrought by the potential consequences of their actions, they don't act at all. And opportunity passes them by.