Federal Reserve officials have said they plan on raising interest rates this year if economic conditions deteriorate.

Rate hikes could obviously wreak havoc with financial markets. So how should investors prepare? MarketWatch columnist Chuck Jaffe offers several suggestions, phrasing them in football terms to mark the start of NFL training camps.

For the core of your portfolio, "you don’t need funds that fit into every check-off on a style box — that would force an investor to have nine stock and nine bond funds at a minimum," he writes.

"But you need building blocks on offense and defense. Consider your core stock funds the offensive players and core bond funds to be your defense."

Hopefully those funds have above-average historical returns and below-average costs, Jaffe says. "This is a good time to review performance on a relative basis: make sure the funds on your team are keeping up at their position and in their asset class."

As for the Fed, opinion is divided over whether it will start increasing rates at its meeting in September, October or December. Its federal funds rate target has stood at a record low of zero to 0.25 percent since December 2008.

Meanwhile, Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief of Forbes Media, tells Newsmax TV that Fed rate hikes would be a good thing now.

"When the Fed allows rates to rise you're going to see the beginnings of the credit markets in this country working again," Forbes told Newsmax TV's "The Hard Line" program. "Small and new businesses are having a very difficult time with regulations, which make bank loans very expensive for small businesses."

Thus these companies aren't receiving much in the way of loans, especially from community banks, which are "getting crushed by regulations," Forbes said.

"What you have is a situation where . . . big companies are doing well, the government is doing well in terms of borrowing. But the people who are the innovators, the job creators, which come from small businesses, they're suffering in this environment." So rising rates can help job creators, Forbes maintains.

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• Analyst Razza: Rate Hike to Be 'Disastrous' for Millions of Americans
• Goldman's Hatzius: Fed Won't Raise Rates Until December at Earliest