Think financial services these days and words like misery, suffering, devastation and doom come to mind. Billions of dollars have evaporated from the portfolios of investors. Retirements have been put on hold.

You are not alone.

Financial advisers, mutual fund operators and other investment managers who collect fees based on the size of the portfolios they manage are taking in fewer dollars these days. The revenue shortfall leaves them with two alternatives: replacing those revenues by signing new clients or offering safer alternatives and shrinking staff to keep expenses in line with income.

Accounting firms and other consultants who advised clients on mergers and acquisitions have seen that business dry up as risk-averse buyers conserve cash in a times of monumental uncertainty.

But there are ways to prosper in even the grimmest environments. Mark Gleason, of Gleason & Associates, says there has been increased demand for the One Gateway Center accounting firm's forensic accounting and valuation services. Nervous creditors are seeking an independent assessment of the value of the collateral backing their loans.

"We've seen that in other downturns in the economy but we're seeing more this time than we have in the recent past," Mr. Gleason says.

John Kaye, consulting partner with Sisterson & Co., says the Downtown accounting firm is performing more collateral audits for creditors. Lenders are also keeping a sharper eye on financial covenants, provisions in lending agreements that allow lenders to revise terms if a borrower's finances fall short of prescribed levels.

"If a covenant gets tripped, they're taking the opportunity to rework the deal," Mr. Kaye says. "We're doing a lot of work with worried lenders."

Ray Buehler, president and chief executive officer of Schneider Downs, says clients are still seeking the Downtown accounting firm's help with financial statements and tax returns. But revenues have been hurt at the firm's fee-based wealth management business, its non-profit client base is under intense pressure, and clients have cut back on discretionary work. The firm has the same number of clients, Mr. Buehler says, "It's just that they're not buying."

"There's no doubt our firm has been impacted by what is going on," he says.

There have been no layoffs at the firm, which is "in a cost-containment mode on anything that is discretionary," Mr. Buehler says. "We're going to be lucky to have moderate growth this year."

The firm budgeted for about 11 percent revenue growth for the fiscal year that began July 1. Achieving that looks doubtful now. But Mr. Buehler believes the firm's decision to diversify into other businesses about a decade ago will allow it to come out of the current slump stronger.

What would help, he says, is if buyers had the confidence to pursue acquisitions given how much the slump has knocked down the price tag on potential targets. That would generate work for Schneider Downs' due diligence practice.

"That's going to be one of the first things that come back," Mr. Buehler says. "The confidence has to come back first and the confidence clearly isn't there at this point."

Fee-based asset managers who rely heavily on equity markets are having a tough time of it, says Greg Melvin, chief investment officer of C.S. McKee, Downtown.

If the value of the assets you manage goes down 40 percent or 50 percent, "Your profit goes down a multiple of that," Mr. Melvin says. But C.S. McKee, which manages nearly $8 billion for clients, has seen a pick up in business from investors moving money from stocks or high-yielding junk bonds to safer fixed income investments.

"We're benefitting from both trends," he says.

The flight to safety is also giving a boost to Federated Investors. The Downtown investment manager was a pioneer in the money market business, an expertise that helped send Federated's assets under management to a record $407 billion at year end.

Another reason for the gain was Federated's timely decision to acquire the expertise of someone who is always prepared for the worst.

In December, it acquired the $1.1 billion Prudent Bear Fund and other assets of David W. Tice & Associates of Dallas. Through Thursday, the fund [ticker: BEARX] was up 10.5 percent this year after registering a 27 percent gain last year, when Wall Street turned in its worst performance since 1931.

"We have our own perspective on how we look at the world," says Douglas C. Noland, one of the fund's managers. "I've been doing this a long time and I've never seen an environment where there was this much uncertainty."

The fund sells stocks, market indexes and futures short, and takes long positions in gold, precious metals and mining companies, relying on risk controls to limit losses in bull markets. Mr. Noland says the fund was designed to be a hedge component of a balanced portfolio, providing support to investors during bear markets.

He's not letting the fund's recent prosperity go to his head, declining to venture a guess on where the stock market is heading.

"The markets are so humbling," Mr. Noland says.