When I was a kid, there was a popular song titled, “30 Days in the Hole,” by the rock band Humble Pie. Well, when looking at this market, I got to thinking about that song. That’s because stocks have been in the hole for sometime now.

In fact, by my calculations, it’s been nearly 90 days since the market’s top on April 23. That’s a long time to be in the hole. I think the longer we continue trading below long-term technical trend lines, the greater the probability that we’ll slip into another bear market.

As you can see by the chart here of the S&P 500, with the exception of a brief breach of the 200-day moving average in June, stocks have essentially been below the 200-day moving average since mid-May.

To add insult to injury, the most recent quarter’s domestic and international equity market returns were brutal. Many domestic indices were down more than 10%, and many more international equity indices were down far more.

Yet, I suspect the real pain of the second quarter’s pitiful performance can be seen in so many 401(k) statements that recently hit investors’ mailboxes. I’ve looked at many investor statements during the past couple of weeks, and I can tell you that a huge percentage of the people I’ve spoken with have lost some serious money in the past three months.

I feel fortunate, as my family’s 401(k) actually is allocated to bonds and cash, and thus we achieved some nice upside during the tough second quarter. In my opinion, the high risk of investing in equities here has by no means subsided. There still are many economic and political uncertainties out there as we head into the remainder of this wild 2010. Until we see more upside visibility in stocks, I will continue managing my money with the objective of mitigating risk. I recommend that you do the same.