By Russ Koestrich of Blackrockblog.com 

The one word that characterizes financial markets today: volatile.

Take last week’s gyrations. Stocks sold off aggressively for most of the week on concerns about plunging oil, falling U.S. earnings estimates, China and slowing global growth. Amid the selloff, Japanese, U.K. and French stocks all entered bear market territory, according to MSCI index data accessible via Bloomberg.

Then, markets rebounded strongly late in the week, thanks in part to dovish comments from the European Central Bank (ECB).

Indeed, volatility measures have spiked to multi-month highs lately, with 2016 experiencing the worst start to a year in market history, according to Bloomberg data. The volatility is leading many investors to exit stocks. For those that remain the key question becomes: Where to hide?

Under more normal conditions, the simple answer for U.S. investors, particularly when volatility is being driven by concerns over growth, is to re-allocate to more defensive, less economically sensitive parts of the U.S. market. Examples include certain sectors: utilities, consumer staples and often, telecommunications.

The traditional logic is that these sectors are less exposed to the pace of economic growth, and therefore, their earnings should hold up better in a downturn. However, this approach may not work this time around, because the volatility is largely being driven from outside the United States, i.e. China. Further complicating matters, after years of investors favoring these sectors for their dividends, many of these sectors are expensive. Finally, should market volatility begin to stabilize and interest rates climb a bit, these defensive stocks would be particularly vulnerable.

So, rather than focus on defensive sectors, investors may want to approach the current turmoil from a different perspective, and focus instead on these three investing strategies.

Consider Minimum Volatility Funds