We’ve heard a lot of gloom-and-doom forecasts lately about bonds. That’s understandable in a way, because the most actively traded sector of the bond universe — Treasury paper — has gotten walloped since last October. Whenever prices fall, in any market, pundits will step forward to predict more of the same, world without end.

But I can’t think of any other investment that has been pronounced dead so many times during the past decade (or longer). It may well be that long-term Treasury yields will never return to the historic lows we saw in December 2008 — 2.1% on the 10-year note and 2.5% on the 30-year bond. No government that borrows $1 trillion a year deserves to pay those rates.

However, it doesn’t follow that all bonds will deliver poor returns, all the time, from this point forward. For one thing, many corporate and municipal bonds, as well as mortgages and emerging markets bond funds, offer a substantial yield premium over U.S. Treasuries. This “spread” will insulate you, to some extent, should Treasury yields rise. (As rates climb, the resale price of existing bonds falls.)

Furthermore, history suggests it will take years, not months, for bond yields across the board to develop strong, sustained upward momentum. At the bottom of the last super-cycle for yields, Treasurys touched down in July 1941, while high-grade corporates scraped their low almost five years later, in April 1946. It wasn’t until September 1956 (another 10 years later) that high-grade corporate yields had moved up 100 basis points from their 1946 trough. Bond yields mounted a similar slow ascent off the previous major bottom in 1897.

I think the Treasury rout has pretty much run its course, for now anyway. Polls show that trading advisers have turned snarlingly bearish on T-bonds — a condition that usually marks at least an interim bottom for prices (a top for yields).

But I see no reason to push the panic button on all bonds right now. Quite the contrary: We appear to be in the midst of a nice buying opportunity for several types of bonds, especially munis, that offer safer — and more profitable — opportunities.

What we want to do is earn a higher yield than we could with Treasurys, while taking as little additional risk as possible (maybe even less risk when you consider the sharp price swings that bedevil long-dated T-bonds). Bond king Bill Gross of PIMCO calls this extra yield over Treasurys a “safe spread.”

Best Mutual Funds to Buy Now

Where do you find a safe spread nowadays? In three nooks, each with somewhat different

characteristics.

1. Emerging Market Funds

The first nook is emerging markets. At first blush, you might say, “Emerging markets? Russia, Turkey, Mexico? Aren’t those risky places?” Yes, they are, in the sense that those countries don’t enjoy the same political stability — or legal protections for investors — that we do in the United States.

On the other hand, they have an edge over us in one key respect: Their economies are growing faster, with less of a debt burden to hold them back. For a bondholder, that means greater safety than investors have traditionally ascribed to these countries. And emerging markets bonds are far more likely to pay your principal and interest in full and on time than was the case 10 or 20 years ago.

In this space, I like the closed-end Western Asset Emerging Markets Debt Fund (NYSE: ESD). As a closed-end fund, ESD trades like an ordinary share of stock on the Big Board, sometimes at a premium but usually at a discount to net asset value (the value of the securities in the fund’s portfolio).

Of late, the fund has been quoted around a 10% discount. In other words, you can buy $1 worth of bonds for only 90 cents. Thanks in part to the discount, ESD throws off a rich 7.1% yield. Monthly distributions. Buy ESD on a pullback below $18.75.

2. Mortgage Funds

Mortgages are the second nook where you can find safe spreads. Everybody knows about the mortgage crisis and the foreclosure epidemic. Yet few people know the rest of the story: 94% of homeowners and 91% of commercial-property owners are still meeting their mortgage payments. For investors who know how to separate the good paper from the bad, opportunity is calling.

Among the masters of the art is Jeffrey Gundlach, skipper of DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund (MF: DLTNX). Gundlach started the DoubleLine funds after leaving TCW, where he compiled an outstanding record as a bond manager, even logging a positive return in 2008 — by far the toughest year ever for the mortgage sector.

Gundlach’s new fund jumped off to a fast start, posting a 16.4% total return (price gain plus income distributions) from inception in April 2010 through year-end. I don’t expect DLTNX to keep up such a torrid pace in the months ahead. However, there should still be plenty of room for appreciation.

Reason: Non-government-guaranteed mortgages (the fund owns lots of them) continue to fetch a wide yield premium over Treasurys — a “spread” that should contract in the months ahead as the real estate market stabilizes. Meanwhile, you’re collecting a luscious 9.3% annualized yield, based on the six most recent monthly distributions. Buy DLTNX at $11.10 or less.

3. Muni Bonds

Municipal bonds are my third and final nook for finding safe spreads. In December, analyst Meredith Whitney ignited a firestorm with her prediction on “60 Minutes” of 50 to 100 municipal defaults over the next 12 months, worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Since then, panicked investors have withdrawn record amounts from muni bond funds. But the evidence so far doesn’t support these fears.

According to preliminary figures from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, state tax revenues surged 6.9% in the fourth quarter of 2010 from the year-ago period. That’s a sharp acceleration from the 4.5% growth reported in the third quarter.

Granted, overall collections are still down slightly from the 2007 peak. However, the trend is improving, not deteriorating — the opposite of what an “Apocalypse Now” scenario would suggest.

I’m buying munis, and I advise you to do the same. For your retirement account (or if you’re in the 15% tax bracket or lower), my favorite vehicle is the exchange-traded PowerShares Build America Bond Portfolio (NYSE: BAB). BAB invests in taxable bonds issued by state and local governments under the now expired federal Build America subsidy program.

At a current yield of 6.2%, BAB delivers substantially more cash, per dollar invested, than corporate bonds of similar credit quality. Over time, I expect this disparity (another “spread”) to vanish, lifting the fund’s share price. Pay up to $25.50 for BAB.