Searching For a Market Bottom? Keep Looking?

For those hoping that the seven-day blowout on Wall Street may have created a market bottom, there are two words to contemplate: Not yet.

Over the past week the stock market has posted its biggest drop ever, tumbling more than 20 percent and triggering angst and despair among both investors and traders on the floor.

But most analysts watching the situation think market activity, by sheer volume if nothing else, is inadequate to declare that the worst has passed, though there are definite signs that it is coming.

"You really just want people to say, 'I can't take it anymore,' and I think we're getting to that position," said Quincy Krosby, chief investment strategist at The Hartford. "Selling begets selling, that's what happens, until it kind of washes out, until the last seller comes in and says, 'That's it.' Then there's kind of an eerie quiet."

But while hedge funds and industrial investors have been bailout out of positions, individual retail investors have still not reached the severe panic point.

"We're seeing volatility right now that's really starting to freak out the investor for sure," Ben Lichtenstein, president of Traders Audio, said on CNBC. "Once the investor, the normal, everyday-type investor starts to see his original investment start to decrease, that's where the fear-type selling could kick in."

Krosby said that despite Thursday's washout, in which stocks across the board lost about 7 percent of their value, volume was too thin. Total market volume was about 1.8 billion shares, and she would expect a number closer to 2.5 billion to 3 billion to see a true capitulation.

"You'd like to see more selling," Krosby said. "That's something that you look for, really, really having selling and you didn't have that yesterday and you didn't have that in many of the really strong down days."