Perhaps the US economy is on to a new phase. The general consensus is that we've hit bottom and recovery will start before 2010 does.

Stocks are up almost 40 percent from March lows, demonstrating to disappointed investors that it takes way more than 40 percent up to recover from 40 percent down. The housing and jobs reports have been a bit less gloomy than expected. Interest rates are moving up.

And yet, economists aren't predicting a return to fat and happy growth. They are, for the most part, predicting a kind of anaemic recovery. That makes sense, if you think about the fact that the hyper growth of the last decade was based on unstable credit practices that are being reined in.

The vaunted consumer return to prudence in the form of frugality and paying down debt means that consumer-driven companies will not have wildly exuberant earnings projections anytime soon.

At the same time, there is fluff baked into the recipe. The full impact of the federal stimulus package is trillions, with an "s". Rising oil prices and heavy government borrowing means that inflation is probably temporarily absent, not whipped.

Most workers are expressing faith in the system by continuing to feed their 401(k) plans, individual retirement accounts, and even their children's college savings plans. But, once the money is in the account, what do you do with it?

Here are some pointers based on past history and current projections.

• Use summer pullbacks to put money into stocks. Bob Doll of money management firm BlackRock is one of many analysts expecting stocks to give back some of their recent gains over the summer. "We could see a near-term decline to between 800 and 850 for the S&P 500," he says.

Expect volatility and some scary sell-offs. But as the economy moves forward in future months and years, stocks will move up along with gross domestic product. Buy on bad days.

"If we do have a significant decline in the stock market, while the world is panicking and the media is breathlessly reporting the end of western civilisation, we will see it as the buying opportunity of a lifetime," says David Hultstrom, a Woodstock, Georgia, financial adviser.

• Go wide. Broad market index funds can be expected to capture most of the upturn, just as they got slammed during the downturn. It makes sense to keep a big, low-cost, total-market index fund at the core of your portfolio.

• Get paid to wait. It's hard to recommend dividend paying stocks when several of the biggest dividend-paying stars have seen their share prices slashed, cut their dividends, or even, in the case of General Motors, gone bankrupt.

But over the long term, dividends make up over 60 percent of real stock market returns, says MFS Investment Management strategist Jim Swanson. Many former blue chip companies may have been oversold. "Large-cap dividend-paying stocks hold up best" in inflationary times, Swanson said.

• Look for value. Value stocks, those selling at attractive prices relative to their book value, sales and earnings, tend to do well coming out of recession. So do (pause, gasp) financial stocks. Even when they aren't being shored up by taxpayers.

• Think about trends and where money will flow: Infrastructure, alternative energy, international trade, discount stores.

• Prepare for inflation. It may not happen for at least a year, but it's probably out there. Invest a corner of your portfolio in inflation bets that are somewhat inexpensive right now: natural resources funds and Treasury I-bonds. Tuck them away for later.

• Be strategic about bonds. The bond-buying experts at Pacific Investment Management Co. (PIMCO) are predicting at least a year before serious rate hikes hurt long-term bond investors. But rate hikes will accompany a recovering economy, and investors who like locking their money into bonds will have to be nimble if they want to avoid the bond price declines that will come when that hits.

Corporate bonds, and in particular, high-yield corporate bonds (through funds, not risky individual corporate bonds) tend to be more rewarding than Treasuries, and safer as the economy recovers. It's almost always good to balance your stock holdings with some bond holdings, suggests research from T. Rowe Price, but if the recovery leads to runaway inflation and interest rates, bond holders could be the next group to get bloodied.