(April 9) – “Warren Buffett doesn’t know. Abby Joseph Cohen wouldn’t guess. And, even if Alan Greenspan knew, he wouldn’t tell,” writes E.S. Browning in today’s Wall Street Journal.

“None of these experts even pretends to be able to say when the stock market will stop swooning. ‘They don’t ring a bell at the bottom,’ as one Wall Street saying puts it.”

“So how is an investor to decide whether it’s safe to move money back into stocks? Fortunately, on that score, the pundits offer more guidance. Instead of trying to call a bottom, they say, investors can look for signs that indicate that the risks of another sharp decline have diminished. And then, rather than rushing in to buy all at once, they can take their time.”

“After they do hit bottom, stocks can bounce up and down for weeks or months. So, if investors miss the bottom by 5% or 10%, by buying too soon or too late, they still will get stocks that are far cheaper than they’ve been in a long time.”

“David Dreman, of Dreman Value Management in Jersey City, N.J., eschewed technology highfliers when they were in vogue, but he says he now has begun to ‘nibble’ on names such as Cisco Systems Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. ‘My first rule is, you don’t want to be early. You want to give the stock more room,” he says. “We don’t know how much this market is going to unravel, so we want to go slowly.’ “

“With the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index now down 26% from its record close last year, and the Nasdaq Composite Index off 66% from its record finish, here are some of the signs veteran investors are looking for.”

“The Dow Jones Industrial Average still is less than 20% below last year’s record close, which means it technically isn’t in a bear market. But the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq certainly are.”

“The S&P 500 is the broad gauge of big-stock performance most widely watched by professional investors. One strategy is simply to buy after the index has dropped 20% or more — now, for example — when many investors are giving up and selling. If you wait to buy until that selling washes through a bit, you may not get the rock-bottom price, but you might often get a bargain.”

“This is the 10th time since World War II that the S&P 500 has been down by 20% or more. On the previous nine occasions, anyone who bought once the index was down 20% enjoyed an average gain of 18% a year later, according to Ned Davis Research, a market-research firm in Venice, Fla.”