Market capitulation may not come as expected, some say.(Chicago Tribune)

CHICAGO _ Who could blame investors if they feel like they are trapped in the play "Waiting for Godot"?

As major stock indexes lurch toward _ or below _ their post-Sept. 11 lows, a chorus of commentators and analysts are speculating about whether, at long last, the market is moving toward a cataclysmic sell-off so that it can begin its rightful upward track.

One problem: Like in Samuel Beckett's existential drama, it may never come.

The notion that the current long, wrenching downturn in stocks needs to culminate in a so-called capitulation has been repeated countless times over the past two years, but the record suggests that few bear markets are slated quite that dramatically.

"Some end with a bang, some with a whimper," said Richard Sylla, an economist and market historian at New York University's Stern School of Business.

Although it's impossible to find any consensus on a definition of a capitulation _ or, for that matter, a bear market _ an examination of 10 of the biggest sustained slides in the Dow Jones industrial average over the past 75 years indicates only a handful ended with the popular idea of capitulation: a high-volume, one-day plunge as all but the most steel-hearted investors throw in the towel.

In that climate of battered prices and intensely negative sentiment, the theory goes, stocks are able to respond with a sharp uptick as savvy investors move in, laying the foundation for a new bull market.