He said that growing fears over deflation made it more likely that policy makers would overreact in their attempts to stimulate growth in the economy. And that, in turn, means that “inflation is still what you have to worry about down the road,” he said.

As a result, Mr. Arnott isn’t focusing entirely on near-term deflation. Rather than buying long-term Treasuries, he suggests an investment in Treasury inflation-protected securities, or TIPS.

Mr. Arnott argues that if inflation begins to become a threat two or three years down the road, having the inflationary hedge of a TIPS bond will protect an investor against rising prices  which is something that a regular Treasury bond won’t do.

In the meantime, individual TIPS are still government bonds backed by the full faith and credit of Uncle Sam. And even if Mr. Arnott is wrong and deflation persists for years, investors who buy individual TIPS will at least have the security of being able to recoup the face value of their bond at maturity, while still earning a yield of around 1.2 percent a year.

Now that’s 1.6 percentage points less than what regular Treasuries of equivalent maturities are paying. But, Mr. Arnott asks, “What are the chances of inflation being less” than that for a decade?

If you truly fear deflation, fixed-income securities  because of their relative safety and the income they throw off  will most likely be better than equities, money managers say. But they note that investors need to be choosy about the types of bonds they buy.

Among corporate securities, investors should pay attention to companies’ balance sheets. “You want to avoid highly leveraged companies,” said Carl P. Kaufman, manager of the Osterweis Strategic Income fund. In a deflationary environment, a debt-ridden company would have to pay back obligations with increasingly valuable dollars. “In inflation, you’re cheapening the value of dollars over time,” Mr. Kaufman said. “In deflation, it’s the opposite: dollars become dearer over time.”