“It ain’t over till it’s over,” Yogi Berra once said. Many worrywarts seem to be relating to today’s ulcer-producing stock market environment in the same way.

One of them is money manager Barrie Vogle, who supervises about $240 million of assets at Canadian-based VCo Capital. “You can say the same thing about the U.S. stock market,” he says. “There are just too many ifs and unknowns to assume the worst is over.”

Granted, he went on, the Federal Reserve has stepped in big-time to help prevent more financial crises, but does anyone really believe the housing, subprime mortgage, and credit crunch problems are about to evaporate overnight? “Only the fools and dreamers, I think, who are telling everybody the worst is all over and it’s time to rush into the market because stocks have become so incredibly cheap,” he says.

Although a number of market dogs, notably some home-building and financial stocks, have enjoyed good rebounds this year, Mr. Vogle says he would be more apt to sell them than buy them because he believes their downside risk remains sizable.

Mr. Vogle says it’s clear to him from Wednesday’s 293-point decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average following Tuesday’s surge of 420.41 that the fear factor is still alive and kicking, and that the recent bear trend is anything but over and done with, as some claim. Taking note of a slowing economy, a large batch of impending first-quarter earnings shortfalls, more write-offs in the financial arena, and further distress in housing, Mr. Vogle believes a resumption of a downward market trend is close at hand. “I would definitely be a seller, because at the very least I think you’re looking at another 10% to 15% drop in stock prices,” he says. “The way things stand now, no rally of any substance is sustainable.”

Interestingly enough, many investors might well have agreed with him following Sunday’s stunning disclosure that JPMorgan Chase was buying financially troubled Bear Stearns Cos. for a measly $2 a share, or a little more than $232 million. Considering the paltry price, it was widely believed that the liquidity of investment banks and banks had deteriorated far worse than anyone thought and additional industry failures could follow. In turn, many pros thought the market would get clobbered the next day, with the Dow perhaps tumbling 400 to 500 points. When the Dow then fell more than 200 points in early Monday trading, but later dramatically reversed itself by closing the day with a 21-point gain, it eased a lot of jitters, raising the possibility in many investment minds that the worst of the recent decline was over and maybe a bottom had been reached.

A San Francisco money manager, Gary Wollin, who manages close to $100 million of assets under the banner Gary Wollin & Co., was one of those who mistakenly thought the Dow would tumble about 400 points on Monday. The Fed’s action — arranging for JPMorgan to buy Bear Stearns — forestalled the market decline, “but only temporarily,” he says. “The underlying problem, continued falling real estate values, is still with us. You have less disposable income because the necessities of life [food and gas] are all going up, the summer housing selling season is bound to be a lousy one, and because of a slowing economy and we could be looking at an unemployment rate [now 4.8%] that could reach 5.5% by year-end.”

Mr. Wollin, who views Tuesday’s big rise as “a misguided investment trip to la-la land,” thinks the market trend remains unmistakably down, but because of the Fed’s accelerated money printing, he has upped his year-end 2008 Dow forecast to 11,500 from 11,000.

The Fed’s rescue of Bear Stearns has ignited renewed interest in beaten-up financial stocks, but Mr. Wollin calls them “poisonous.” Everyone knows more shoes will drop, he says. “Why wander about in an area of land mines?”

I get a decidedly opposing view from William Knapp, the chief investment strategist of MainStay Investments, a $37 billion money management subsidiary of New York Life. “I think the worst is over, that last week marked the darkest days,” he says.

Part of his optimism stems from his strong belief that there will be no recession — in other words, no two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the gross domestic product. In fact, while many brokerage economists say we’re already in a recession, Mr. Knapp sees the first quarter producing GDP growth of 1% or maybe a surprise on the upside, spurred by robust exports, an inventory build, and an upturn in consumer spending, which he believes reached its weakest point in February.

He also says the worst of the housing skid could be over, citing increased affordability of homes, with the possibility of a fixed-rate mortgage below 6%, pent-up demand, cheaper housing, and the likelihood that housing starts and permits have hit bottom. Summer, he says, could mark a turnaround in housing.

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