This bear market, too, shall pass.

But then what?

Eventually, severe stock market declines end. And the current bear market, regardless of when it finally runs its course, also will end. That could mean handsome returns for investors who happen to catch the bottom of the downturn.

Starting with the stock market crash that preceded the Depression, U.S. stock markets have suffered nine bear markets that lasted at least one year. Those were the bears of 1929-32, 1937-38, 1938-42, 1946-49, 1968-70, 1973-74, 1976-78, 1981-82 and the current nose-dive that began in early 2000.

But once the bears had been chased away from the stock markets, investors danced in the streets during the period immediately following the first eight of those downturns.

The average return during the 12 months after those bear markets had run their course, as measured by the value of the S&P 500 index, was 59 percent. The biggest 12-month gain -- a jump of 171 percent -- came following the 1929-32 crash. The smallest gain was a 10 percent advance after the 1976-78 bear market. The other one-year gains for the S&P ranged from 34 percent to 61 percent, according to a Times analysis of Bloomberg data.

The big problem is that it's not easy for individual investors to take advantage of those gains.

"The strategy would normally be to take every last dollar you've got and buy," said Gerald Perritt, president of Perritt Capital Management in Chicago. "But that's impossible for a lot of us."

Then there's the complication associated with bear markets and recessions. An estimated 77 percent of the bear markets since 1900 coincided with or were followed by a recession, according to a history of the stock market compiled by Jack Schannep of TimingIndicator.com. So that means around the time a bear market is ending, people often don't have much spare cash to invest in stocks. A lot of people don't even have jobs.

"That's the paradox of bear markets," Perritt said. "The best time to buy is when people generally can't buy."

Some economists caution that people shouldn't necessarily expect to make back their money all at once, even if they manage to jump back into stocks near the trough of the bear.

"A rising market is generally a much slower process than a falling market," said Alex Cassuto, a professor of economics at Cal State Hayward. "With markets, you have something we call kurtosis, which means there aren't equal percent changes before and after the tops and bottoms of a market."

But market watchers warn that this time around, any rebound could be muted. In part, that's because the bear market was unleashed and then prolonged by a series of negative events for the market.

First off, the federal government pursued Microsoft Corp. in an anti-trust case, and the Internet bubble imploded. Then came the onset of the recession. Things quickly worsened with the terrorist attacks on the East Coast, which triggered thousands of layoffs and devastated the airline and tourism industries. Earlier this year, corporate fraud scandals roiled the markets again. Finally, investors are fearful about the pace of the economic recovery and the possibility of a war with Iraq.

"There are a lot of big trees in that forest, and they have all come down about the same time," Perritt said.

This means investors will be extraordinarily cautious about jumping back into stocks.

"Every time the market starts to head higher, a lot of people will take that opportunity to sell their stocks and redeem themselves out of this market," said Charles Geisst, a stock market historian and author of the 2002 book "Wheels of Fortune."

Investors will have to believe that much of the murky outlook for the stock market has been cleared away before they feel confident about returning in a big way.

"These exogenous events, such as a war with Iraq, have to disappear," Geisst said. "The lack of resolution with Iraq is more uncertainty than the market can handle."

Corporate profits could be another drag on the rebound. Normally, corporate profits improve quickly and are an early indicator of a market recovery. This time, it could take a bit longer for corporate profits to visibly improve, said Xiao-Jun Zhang, a professor of accounting at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

"Because of the impact from the corporate scandals, the financial managers at companies really want to be conservative in reporting profits," Zhang said. "Anything they are not sure about, they will book as an expense."

This time around, corporate profits could actually become a lagging indictor. Zhang believes it might not be a bad idea to see whether companies' revenues are beating expectations.

Either way, a rising market, whenever that happens to resume, could begin suddenly, said Norm Loofbourrow, a San Ramon-based investment adviser with American Investors Co. in San Ramon. Investors who aren't savvy or nimble could miss out on the upturn.

"Most of the money in the market is managed by professionals and large pension funds, and they will start to move in first when there's a rebound," Loofbourrow said. "Then, it will be months later when the rest of the herd moves in."