Oct. 12--After one of the most punishing weeks in stock-market history, some investors are deciding they can't take any more.

They're selling. Sometimes against their advisers' advice, they're abandoning long-held positions in stocks and mutual funds, fleeing to the safety of government-insured bank accounts.

Joe Terril is doing just the opposite. The veteran investment pro, founder of Terril & Co. in Des Peres, is ready to plunge into the stock market for the first time in a year and a half.

He looks at the wreckage of the last eight trading days, which vaporized $2.7 trillion worth of stock-market value, and sees opportunity. He mentions companies like Johnson & Johnson, AT&T and Intel, all blue-chip businesses that have no credit or liquidity problems. Shares of all three lost one-sixth of their value in the blink of an eye.

Terril intends to buy those or other beaten-down shares next week. "I'm actually getting optimistic," said the man whose bearish opinions often have been quoted in this newspaper since early 2007.

"The only reason to sell right now is if you think you're in a 1930s-style depression. I don't believe that is going to be the case. With the massive liquidity that every central bank in the world is providing, the markets can't help but respond to it."

Most people would be quick to take credit for being out of the market during such a spectacular downturn, but Terril said he didn't expect a week like this.

He had been avoiding stocks out of fear that inflation would force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. Instead, the Fed cut rates this week and economists are talking about the danger of deflation.

"I am surprised by how fast stocks went down," Terril said. "I guess I was right, but for the wrong reason."

If one stock-market skeptic now sees value in the market, plenty of other investors are doubting their buy-and-hold creed. Chris Lissner, president of Acropolis Investment Management in Chesterfield, said about 15 of his clients have dumped all of their stock holdings.

"People who have been rock-solid investors are scared out of their wits and out of their judgment," Lissner said. He advised all of them to hold on, and even to take advantage of low stock prices by rebalancing their accounts.

When people can't sleep at night, though, even the legendary Benjamin Graham couldn't teach them to be patient investors.

The panicky clients have plenty of company: Investors pulled a record $74.5 billion out of mutual funds in September, even before this month's market rout. "It's unbelievable, the level of fear in the marketplace," Lissner said.

In his mind, dividends should put a floor under stock prices -- at least for solid companies that don't have an overwhelming debt load. Ameren shares, for example, now yield 9 percent.

"Are people going to keep turning their lights on so they can keep paying their dividend? I think it's highly likely," Lissner said.

Carl Enloe, of Monetary Management Group in west St. Louis County, also counsels patience amid panic. "It's hard for people to hold on," he said. "Human nature being what it is, they panic and become more fearful, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy by sending the market down."

If you're one of those fear-stricken investors, remember that when you're selling, somebody else is buying. That somebody may just be a reformed bear like Terril, ready to go bargain hunting.

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