WALL STREET STRATEGISTS WHO WORRIED about this year’s stock market have turned out to be right — even if they worried about the wrong thing. Their fear had been that a booming economy would force interest rates to start moving up in earnest, which would put the brakes on the rip-roaring equity rally that had been powered by booming corporate profits.

But it’s turned out that the market’s problem has been quite the opposite — stocks have been slogging through the so-called soft patch in which the economy is mired, in no small part because of soaring oil prices. Perhaps even more surprisingly, bonds have been this year’s big winners, even though they’ve been universally out of favor and the Federal Reserve did fulfill expectations by beginning to nudge up short-term rates.

As for investors, this year they’ve done well if the performance of their stocks matched that of money stuffed in a mattress — and they haven’t slept soundly. The broad market is roughly flat for 2004, but the Nasdaq is off about 8%, led by such sore spots as semiconductors, which have had a genuine bear market of their own, tumbling 30%.

Although the outlooks of these seers, who forecast from a top-down, macro vantage point, have been wide of the mark, their views of the market remain nearly as divided as the electorate’s about November’s elections.

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