DESPITE THE BEAR STEARNS BAILOUT AND THE FED'S rate cut, a sense of foreboding is still abroad on Wall and Main Streets. Few investors feel good with an economic slowdown gathering force, the dollar in the dumps and contagion threatening to hit financial sectors previously unscathed or not even suspected of being at risk.

This in mind, we contacted James Finucane, a 67-year-old stock strategist who now works as a consultant in West Lafayette, Ind., home of Purdue University ("modest cost of living, a great brew pub and incomparable high-school hoops," he gushes). Among his talents: pool hustling. He was the 1961 National Student Unions pool champ, representing Notre Dame.

He also has been great at calling stock-market lows, including that reached in the week after the October 1987 crash. "Lows have always been easier for me to call than tops. I was premature in seeing the 2000 stock market high, for instance," notes Finucane, who long labored in Chicago at Stifel, Nicolaus.