The safest investment is in the money market. But, even those have dropped to the point where they give negative returns (97 cents on the dollar) in recent weeks. In fact, there was about $90 billion taken out of money market funds last week, which had Wall Street fearing for a bank run that would take more banks under.
A lot of people invested in commodities, particularly gold, which caused the prices to jump. So, it might be too late to go there.
I wouldn't worry about putting my money in a financial institution that isn't in danger of going under. Check for the financial institutions that are wanting to buy up the ones going broke. Bank of America is one of those players making offers on defunct banks.
Last June, when the stock market took a 3% dive in one day, I immediately switched my 401k to a money market fund. Over the last year, I've gotten about a 4.5% return. But, the old stock fund I was in went down about 20%. So, I made out pretty well, relatively.