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Just today there were new bits of bad: Trump declares bankruptcy on his casinos (for the third time); stocks test their November lows; gold hits seven month high of $970 (suggesting investors are abandoning almost everything but the yellow metal); bankruptcy is now a real option for General Motors (NYSE: GM) and Chrysler; no new details from the Treasury Secretary on the aid to financial institutions, etc. Every day, there seems to be more piling on. Every day there's a new bang from the bumpers.

Even the good news is turning bad. Remember when oil traded for $143+ per barrel? Awful, right? Now that it's below $35 a barrel, low oil is no longer good news. It means less exploration, less profits for energy companies. Investors are dumping oil and gas stocks. The winners, of course, are consumers, pumping gas at affordable prices, which is good. But if exploration tapers off, and less oil is refined, supply and demand will once again drive prices higher. Enjoy the moment. Another bump for the pinball.

But remember this about pinball: there are two flippers at the bottom, weapons that blast the ball back to the top of the board to start the process all over again. In the stock market, one of those flippers currently is the stimulus program, even though it's not well defined. There is new money about to enter the economy. Exactly how and when is still not known, but the money is coming. Unless the funds are totally wasted on bridges to nowhere or some other fatal faux pas, the money will circulate, creating new demand for goods and services and jobs. Of course, there will be inflation down the road. Of course, interest rates will go up as the government borrows from anybody and everybody to finance the program. But something is happening that will most likely help individuals and industries. One of the flippers is about to hit the ball.

The other flipper is even stronger: investor psychology. It's the real driver of the stock market. Right now, it's frozen. Investors have hit too many bumpers on the way down. Each time they think they're making a come back, that things might get better, they're wrong, hurtling faster toward the end of the game. And when the strongest flipper is broken, there's no way to save them. They're off the board, out of the game, don't even want to play anymore.

But psychology will change. Remember the excessive exuberance of the 90's when the horizon had no limit, when stock evaluations made no sense, when greed was good and boundless? Those same investors are now cowering in fear, having learned that there are limits to valuations, that stocks (and real estate) don't simply go higher, that reality still exists, that pain is part of the investing world. Tough lessons to learn. Ones we've all shared.

There doesn't seem to be any reason to buy stocks. With all the bad news, and more coming every day, stocks sink lower and lower, trading at prices no one could imagine, battered by ever increasing fear (and loathing). There's no good to grasp at the moment. The stimulus package will be flipping away at the bottom of the board soon, hoping to knock the ball back into play. Eventually the other flipper, the positive psychology that built this great country, will be fixed. It's the big bat that needs to get back into action. Right now, it's hard to see how that can happen. But it will. When it does, all the lights will go on again, the board will ring, and the game will feel new. It's going to happen but not soon.

In the meantime, keep some stocks that will benefit from the rebound that eventually will come, the ones that make profits now, even in this rough economy. You'll still feel like a pinball, bouncing from one bad news headline to the next, but it won't last forever. And if you buy great stocks with good, safe dividends, you'll get paid for the punishment.

Ted Allrich is the founder of Allrich Investment Management LLC.