So much for sell in May and go away! September would be a much better month to unload stocks, for October has turned into a gloomy month. The great 1929 crash, the 1987 crash and the market "correction" of 1992 all happened during that month. It will be little consolation to investors that losses from bear markets tend to be both less dramatic and less prolonged than gains from bull markets and that those who have held equities in the long-term have tended to be winners.

And they will be even more worried if they hold by the theories of a South African pundit, Fred Crooks, who claims to have forecast the latest crash armed with a complex theory mixing ancient mathematics, weather patterns and the turns of the Ocean tide.

He used the Fibonacci mathematical sequence a numbers series named after a 13th century mathematician. Buoyed by his latest success, he says that the bear market could last into 2001/2002. But don't worry too much. Crooks last forecast a collapse in 1993, which turned out to be a good year for stocks.