What to do if stocks' troubles go on . . . and on

Small investors constantly are advised to think long-term and to avoid panicking over short-term stock market declines.

But what if the long-term picture for the market is no better than the short-term picture?

The latest slump in share prices is renewing a polemic that has flared off and on since 2000: Would the great bull market of the 1980s and 1990s be followed by a generally dismal period for U.S. stocks that might also go on for decades?

It's painful for many people, particularly aging baby boomers, to think about this, given the nest eggs they've built up in stocks. The fact is, there are ways to protect your portfolio, but you can't escape risk whether you're in the market or out. (More on this later.)

In Wall Street parlance, a very long period of falling or, at best, sideways-moving stock prices is termed a "secular" bear market. And there have been some doozies in relatively recent U.S. history.

From 1966 to 1982, for example, the Dow Jones industrial average made no net progress. There were huge rallies and steep declines -- typical bull and bear markets -- along the way. But a buy-and-hold investor in that 16-year period had no price appreciation to show for it by August 1982.

Many people who had relied on the market for retirement savings in that era wound up with far less of a nest egg than they had expected.

No wonder that by 1982 most Americans had sworn off stocks -- unfortunately, just as the market finally was climbing out of its funk.

In the '80s and '90s, of course, rebounding U.S. prosperity was mirrored by a spectacular surge in stocks that reached its zenith with the dot-com insanity of the late 1990s.

But with the crushing decline in share prices in 2000-02, a secular bear market had begun, some Wall Street pros believe. They say the market's steep drop since October, with the Dow now off nearly 20%, is just another phase of the overall downtrend.

"I think we've probably been in a secular bear market since the summer of 2000," said Bruce Bittles, veteran strategist at investment firm Robert W. Baird & Co. in Nashville.

The first phase, he said, was the crash in overvalued tech stocks and many blue-chip names. Now, the risk is that the credit crunch stemming from the housing market's plunge will be a drag on U.S. economic growth for years to come -- in turn severely slowing profit growth for many companies and sapping investors' enthusiasm for stocks. Earnings, after all, underpin share prices.

What's more, the stock market faces a major head wind it didn't face in the '90s: Record prices for oil and other commodities are driving inflation higher. That means current low interest rates probably have nowhere to go but up, as the Federal Reserve signaled again this week.

Rising interest rates can be crippling for stocks because they raise companies' borrowing costs and make bonds more alluring as investments, at stocks' expense.

Against this backdrop, "earning real returns in the stock market is going to be very difficult," said Michael Pento, market strategist at Delta Global Advisors in Huntington Beach.