Was it a start, a finish, or both?

Manic weeks like this one in the markets test investors in so many ways. Including their ability to withstand massive metaphoric pile-up.

Was it the beginning of the end? The end of the beginning? Did the financial system dodge a bullet -- or a cannonball?

Some key take-aways from the wild week that was:

* They all can agree on one thing: More help, please. It's difficult, if not impossible, to find anyone on Wall Street who isn't expecting an eventual federal bailout of bad mortgages.

Money managers, economists, investment strategists -- they all believe the endgame of the housing-centered credit crunch will be the government taking some portion of troubled loans out of the banking system and onto its own books.

They believe it even more now than they did before the shotgun marriage of debt-challenged brokerage Bear Stearns Cos. to JPMorgan Chase & Co. last weekend, financed in part with a $30-billion emergency loan from the Federal Reserve. It's not surprising that such an extraordinary move would stoke expectations for more government involvement.

Many investment managers, particularly those who own mortgage-backed bonds, pitch the idea of government purchases of those securities as a win-win proposition: Once Uncle Sam takes some of the loss-ridden bonds off the market, the argument goes, private investors will believe that the bottom is at hand and will jump in as well, betting that the bonds are undervalued relative to the potential recovery rate on delinquent loans.

So Wall Street's straight-faced message to taxpayers is, "You go first; we're right behind you."

* Itchy trigger fingers make for huge rallies. Big investors still may be wary of mortgage-backed bonds, but the heady advances in the stock market Tuesday and Thursday showed the hunger to get back into equities.

The Dow Jones industrial average rocketed 420 points, or 3.5%, on Tuesday, after the Fed followed its rescue of Bear Stearns with a three-quarters-of-a-point cut in its benchmark short-term rate, to 2.25%.

After giving back 293 points Wednesday, investors reconsidered and took the Dow up 261 points Thursday, the final session of the holiday-shortened week, to end at 12,361.32.

The net gain for the week: 3.4% -- substantially more than a money-market mutual fund will earn this entire year. Of course, the Dow still is down 12.7% from its all-time high in October.

Bill Strazzullo, a partner at financial advisory firm Bell Curve Trading in Freehold, N.J., says most of his institutional clients are anxiously posing the same question: Isn't it time to bulk up on stocks?

Strazzullo says he's warning about another wave down in share prices in the next few months. His view is that the credit crunch is just beginning to hurt the economy beyond residential housing.

And with so many people eager to call the bottom in stocks, Strazzullo says, he reminds himself that true turning points in falling markets often occur when demoralized investors stop looking for them.