(March 26) – “Brutal and brief, or long and relentless?” asks E.S. Browning in today’s Wall Street Journal.

“For months, many investors have assumed the stock-market downturn would play out on Internet time — a nasty drop, yes, but one that would get the pain over with pretty fast.”

“But this month, stocks of the nation’s most solid companies began following the overpriced technology stocks down. Despite a bounce on Friday, even the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average is close to bear-market territory, a region that broader indexes like the S&P 500 have already entered. And now, some investors are starting to worry that the stock market’s slump might mirror its rise — not swift but long and drawn-out.”

” ‘As much as the bull market exceeded expectations, the bear market will exceed expectations,’ says John Leone, a 52-year-old investor in Del Mar, Calif. He fears that ‘we haven’t got the full correction yet. We’re not close to it.’ “

“The reasons for such gloom, say the growing ranks of those embracing it, are the flip side of the reasons for the boom.”

“The ease with which firms borrowed money and issued new stock in recent years fueled a capital-investment binge that buoyed earnings, the underpinning of stock values. But now that profits are slowing, the residues of that spending — debt loads and excess capacity — make it harder for profits to recover. Meanwhile, steep declines in some of those many newly issued shares just add to investors’ depression.”

“Stocks remain pricey by historical standards. Valuations such as price-to-earnings ratios are far above historical norms. Not only are P/E’s well above past bear-market lows, they are even — for all of the recent carnage — still above the highs of most previous investment eras.”

“Just as unprecedented levels of stock investment by ordinary people buoyed the market in the late 1990s, more people now are feeling the pain of the market’s steady declines. When rising stocks made people feel wealthier, they also were happy to invest. But now they are feeling poorer.”