As a cheerful Bloomberg headline reminds us, equity investors are facing their worst June since the Great Depression. And sure enough, most major markets (the Hang Seng, Dax, CAC, S&P 500 … ) are down more than -8% this month, pulled lower by a number of concerns including a) the health of Western banks, b) the rise in oil prices, c) deteriorating economic growth and d) worsening inflationary pressures.

If the current month ended today the Dow Jones Industrial Index would be down 9.4% and have locked in the worst June since 1930. Check the following chart, coursey of Paul Kedrosky, for the painful picture.

“Granted, June 2008 is not in the top 30 bad months of all time, so let’s keep our

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Sentiment deteriorated further during the past week as oil prices rebounded, more bad news in the financial sector surfaced, economic woes mounted and inflationary pressures intensified, compounding already-jittery investors’ anxiety.

Status Quo’s lyrics “Down down deeper and down” came to mind as global stock markets took a battering. The Dow Jones Industrial Index, for example, plunged by 3.8% over the week to below 12,000 – its lowest level since March. Commensurate with extreme bearishness, short interest on the New York Stock Exchange jumped to an all-time high during the week.

At the centre of investors’ angst was the perception that the credit crisis has not yet played itself out. These fears were supported by Goldman Sachs analysts who

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I posted an opinion poll on the outlook for the US stock market a few days ago. In essence, the post asked whether we were in a bull market, bear market or “muddle-through” market.

In order to try to gain more clarity on the issue, I asked readers to express their opinions on the direction of the Dow Jones Industrial Index by posing the following two questions:

• Where do you see the Dow Jones Industrial Index by June 30, 2008?

• Where do you see the Dow Jones Industrial Index by December 31, 2008?

Before sharing the poll results with you, I thought it could

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