If you eyeball television business shows, the stock market message from most financial experts – chiefly the guests and some financial anchors – is unmistakable: It’s time to stock up on stocks. They believe the worst is over following last week’s debacle, which saw a vicious 420-point plunge in the Dow. Practically ignored is the fact that the major market averages are all down this year and the continued presence of the responsible factors. It’s as though, observes one veteran money manager, Wall Street’s touts have picked up some allies.

However, before getting caught up in this renewed wave of TV stock enthusiasm, or, as one skeptic characterizes it, “TV’s market fairy tale,” a word of caution from a couple of pros who regard such thinking as hogwash.

One is Los Angeles money manager Leonard Mohr of MCR Associates, who likens the current market environment – which is rife with fear and uncertainty – to “the middle of a horror film whose bloodletting has yet to run its course.” His reasoning: “The scary guys are still on the loose.” He points, in particular, to slowing economic growth, the likelihood that earnings should soon follow suit, slowing housing appreciation, rising interest rates, and climbing inflation. As he sees it, “you have to reside in a booby hatch to believe the market will rise in such a climate.”

Pointing, as well, to increasing problems among the corporate powerhouses – notably disappointing numbers at IBM and Tuesday’s report of a staggering $1.1 billion quarterly loss at General Motors, which is the subject of ongoing bankruptcy speculation – Mr. Mohr thinks it’s the beginning of a troubling trend and he’s convinced more bad tidings lie ahead in the corporate world, especially, he believes, plenty of unexpected earnings shortfalls, because, “too many analysts are not dealing with reality by maintaining unrealistically high earnings estimates.”

MCR’s $100 million-plus portfolio is currently 28% in cash and Mr. Mohr thinks it behooves investors to be at least 20%-25% in cash at this juncture because, as he puts it, “cash is now king.” The best advice he said he can offer an investor, is “if there’s a stock you absolutely want to buy, don’t because the market is too risky.”

At best, he thinks, the Dow will hold its own this year; at worst, which he said is the probable outcome, the Dow, which closed yesterday at 10,218.60, will fall to the low 9,000s before year end.

Still, he feels there are always stocks that can buck the trend, or, at the very least, outperform in a falling market. Three that he thinks fit the bill are Bank of America, Home Depot, and ConocoPhillips.

Another worrywart is Raymond James Financial’s chief investment strategist Jeffrey Saut, who said investors should be especially concerned about the “soft landing” that followed last week’s sell-off. When such declines end, he said, they end with a bang, not a whimper. In this case, though, he notes, there was nothing climactic – no margin calls and no panic.

He also said it’s unsettling that the market failed to rally despite two recent positive events – a 14% drop in the price of crude from its recent high of about $58 a barrel and a slide in 10-year Treasury bond rates to 4.25% from 4.7%.

“I don’t like the tone of this market,” he told me. “Because of the decline, we’re not as oversold as we were three weeks ago, but all we’ve done is work off an oversold situation by going sideways. And that’s not what bull markets are all about.”

Mr. Saut emphasizes he’s not terribly worried about the market. But the problem is he doesn’t see any catalyst on the upside. “I think we’re stuck in the middle of a trading range,” he said, “say between the low 9,000s and the upper 10,000s.” Or summing it up, he adds, “I think the major market averages will go nowhere this year.”

Why so? Because the economy will continue to muddle along, he said. He feels that the rise in short term interest rates, combined with the rise in oil prices, will put a big headwind in the face of any robust economic recovery. This leads him to conclude that earnings estimates are almost certainly too high.

So how would he play the market? For starters, he would overweight portfolios in energy, given increasing demand and shrinking supply. Raymond James’s top two picks are drillers Nabors Industries and ENSCO International, which Mr. Saut said are most leveraged to the energy cycle. By the same token, he said he would underweight both technology (because of the lack of end demand) and financials (because earnings are waning and profit margins will contract).

The bottom line: An SOS from some pros who don’t believe in Santa Claus. In brief, beware of TV’s market fairyland; there’s a real financial world out there, and at the moment it’s riddled with problems for investors.