And other good advice from a classical tale.

Next time your clients come to you with stories about what their friends and the financial gurus on radio and television are saying about investing, you might want to have a great big ball of wax on hand so you can plug some of it into their ears.

Then you might want to lash yourself to the nearest mast so you can listen (and know what your clients are hearing), but not act on what you hear.

It worked for Odysseus in Greek mythology. It might just work for you and your clients.

True, Odysseus' adventures across the stormy seas can be dismissed simply as legends. But they also can have lessons for today's investors. Indeed, by treating Homer's Odyssey as a metaphor for your journey through the tumultuous seas of the markets, you might find guidance to help you and your clients steer the right course. You may even stop viewing Odysseus simply as the main character in a Greek myth, but as the world's first documented risk manager.

After all, although the trip was anything but smooth, he arrived safely at his appointed destination-which we cannot say about all our investments over the last few stormy years.

So, like Odysseus, take a firm grip on the wheel and guide your clients through the dangers that lie all around those who would find their way through the market turmoil. Here are some guideposts for the way.

Warning No.1: Avoid the temptation

to listen to the Sirens sweet singing.

The warning to Odysseus was clear. "First you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them," Circe told him. Draw too close, she warned, and your wife and kids will never see you again.

Financial advisors will recognize the Sirens' enchanting voices as similar to those that, at the height of the bull market, lured investors to financial destruction. They, too, "warbled" investors to ruin "with the sweetness of their song." They too, promised to "tell you everything that is going to happen over the whole world." They were those who spoke of a New Economy, of a new age in which dotcoms would break all the investment rules with their never-ending gains, and of an eternal bull market.

Yet the remedy Circe prescribed for Odysseus was as applicable to financial advisors then as it is today, and will no doubt continue to be in the future. "Pass these Sirens by," Circe advised Odysseus. "Stop your men's ears with wax that none of them may hear." She told Odysseus to have his crew lash him to the mast so that he could listen but would be unable to respond. The more he pleaded with them to unleash him, the tighter they should bind him. It worked. Odysseus escaped the destruction to which the Sirens were luring him.

You and your clients need to stay fixed on your investment course. On your journey through the investment world, the compass should point to a course in which you will follow the right asset allocation for your clients and rebalance as the markets move. Don't listen to the advice of those who will tempt you to stray from your target by promises of wealth untold.

Those who listened to the Sirens' song and poured all their money into stocks as the Russell 1000 rose to 813.56 on March 24, 2000, found themselves dashed on the rocks when it reached 448.05 on July 23, 2002. If only they had not strayed from their target asset allocation course, they likely would have survived the rough waters in reasonable shape.

The Sirens' song is different these days. It tells how sweet it is to keep all your money in fixed-income and other investments that will preserve your capital. Avoid stocks, it says, for they are dangerous and will continue to be forever. Get out the wax-and the rope. Steer straight so your clients avoid chasing performance in good markets and bailing out in tough ones. Stay the course.

Warning No. 2: Sacrifices must be made to navigate treacherous waters.

Once he had avoided the Sirens' song, Odysseus faced a more daunting challenge. He had to sail a course through the narrow waters between the whirlpool of Charybdis, which would destroy him and all his crew if he were to be caught up in it, and the multi-headed Scylla, who would grab and eat at least six of his men as he went past. The problem was that the width of this channel was about as far as one could shoot an arrow. The key, Circe explained, was to avoid the whirlpool, which would lead to certain destruction. He should hug the Scylla side and drive his ship past as fast as he could.

"Is there no way," bemoaned Odysseus, "of escaping Charybdis and at the same time keeping Scylla off when she is trying to harm my men?" Today's financial advisors will recognize the same dilemma as they try to guide their clients through the narrow channels that at times characterize the markets.

You know the need to keep your clients' investments diversified among asset classes. In this way, they may not see excessive gains during a bull market, but they will be protected in a downturn. You know, too, to keep some of your clients' portfolios invested in stocks during a market downturn when others might seek to protect all their capital in the money market, because your clients will be positioned to reap benefits should the market turn strongly upward again.

You know, above all, that to "follow the crowd" and invest only in growth stocks in a bull market and to flee totally to the money market in times of distress invites being sucked eventually into a whirlpool from which you likely won't recover.

Yet, by advising your clients to stay with an appropriate asset allocation in good times and bad, you might end up with dissatisfied clients during strong bull and deep bear markets. You may be tempted to adjust your advice to retain all your clients, particularly when they compare their experiences with those of some of their friends. They will likely complain about how little money they are making in a bull market and how much they are losing in a bear market.

But Odysseus could not achieve both aims, and perhaps neither will you. Odysseus lost six of his men as he sailed past. But he did avoid being sucked into the whirlpool to certain death. He saved his own life and the lives of the rest of his crew, too. Like him, you might lose a few clients at the height of a bull market or at the bottom of a bear market, but most will stay with you and be grateful once you are through the channel. After all, it's better to lose a few clients and retain most than to steer close to the whirlpool and lose them all. Stay the course.

Warning No. 3: Tell your clients they defy the market forces at their peril.

After surviving the Sirens' song and the whirlpool of Charybdis, Odysseus' crew was destroyed by Zeus for sacrificing the cattle of Helios. They killed the animals even though Odysseus had warned them repeatedly that the gods had told them not to do so.

Although Odysseus himself was spared, his crew paid the final penalty for believing they could defy the equivalent of the market forces. They found out, too late, that chasing performance and the "hot stocks" seldom works.

"If you leave [the cattle] unharmed, and think of nothing but getting home, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca," Circe told Ulysses. "But if you harm them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both of your ship and of your comrades; and even though you may yourself escape, you will return late, in bad plight, after losing all your men."

Your clients might also be tempted to chase the investment herds. They become confident that the market has bottomed or topped. They know where interest rates are going. They know which stocks will be the market leaders.

Some financial advisors might identify with Homer's words that Odysseus "suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion."

Do all you can to prevent your clients from killing their investments through their own foolishness. Tell them they should not wait to find out-too late-that no one knows which way the market is going. The forces that decide where it will go are bigger than each investor. They are bigger even than groups of investors. They are determined by forces that no one can control or predict.

Remind your clients, therefore, that they should not invest on the basis of where they think the market will go. They should leave that to the market forces and invest in a way that enables them to survive, and occasionally triumph, whatever the market does.

Explain to them that the purpose of the capital markets is to allocate capital to those enterprises that will most effectively contribute to economic well-being, not to make investors rich. Risks and returns in the capital markets, therefore, need to be consistent with current economic conditions. It's sad but true that investors are not the center of the universe.

Yet, in the last four years of the '90s, corporate earnings and stock prices began to substantially diverge as investors determined they knew better. The rate of return on stocks from 1997 to 1999 was 24.9% (as measured by the S&P 500 index), but earnings rose only an average 4.4%. It appeared as though investors were defying the economic gods.

The substantial correction brought about by the bear market would indicate that we have entered calmer waters. But surprises could lie ahead, and the only way we can be prepared for the unexpected is to ensure that our asset allocations are in line with our targets.

Know your place in the universe and maintain devotion to your principles. Like Odysseus and his crew we are only human, after all. Stay the course.

Finally, after a few more adventures, and with some help from his friends, Odysseus returned home and the gods granted him a life (and death) of peace as a reward for his devotion to his principles.

And so the ending for the first risk manager was a happy one. It can be happy, too, for those of us who learn from him.

As long, of course, as we are prepared to accept a little mast lashing.

Randy Lert is chief investment officer of Frank Russell Co.