(Following is an updated version of an article that first ran on June 11, 2002.)

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -- It's not getting much play on the radio these days, but the No. 1 song for any stock investor ought to be Prince's "1999" or maybe that old Rocky Horror Picture Show classic, the chorus of which coos, "Let's do the time warp again."

From Friday's close, the Dow Jones industrial average would need to rally more than 1,700 points next week just to be where it stood three years ago. Fat chance. But at this point, most analysts and investors alike would be happy for the market just to start trading in positive territory for the year.

The Nasdaq composite, the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500 index are all sharply lower in 2002, following two years of declines, and the year's not yet six months old. If the market finishes lower again this year, it will be the first time since 1941 that Wall Street has gone through a three-year losing streak.

President Bush weighed in Friday, saying he believed distrust about corporate reporting was hanging over the stock market because of a "few bad apples", adding that Corporate America must "clean up its act."

With the latest losses, the Dow is down 7.7 percent so far this year. The S&P 500 index is down 13.8 percent year-to-date and, most alarmingly, and the Nasdaq is off 26 percent.

"The investor psyche has been shaken. We've seen two down years in a row in stocks, all the big mutual funds are down, and people are saying, 'What are we doing?'" said Donald Selkin, director of research at Joseph Stevens. "People have been burned so much this year, that they say, 'Screw it, I'd rather put money in real estate, or bonds, something safer.'"

Jack Baker, head of equities at Putnam Lovell Securities, agreed.

"What is the compelling reason to buy stocks right now? There isn't one. If you're looking out six, 12, 18 months, there are some good ideas, but right now there's no incentive to buy," Baker said.

The economic recovery is starting to look weak. The U.S. dollar has been under pressure. Concerns about violent outbreaks as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian and Indian-Pakistani conflicts spring anew almost daily. Worries about corporate governance and the potential for accounting problems still have the power to turn stocks on a dime. Not to mention the seasonal concerns of entering a traditionally slow period, summer.

"The market is acting worse than what the economy and the fundamentals indicate it should," said Joseph Stevens' Selkin, "but you can hardly blame investors. People are spooked. They've been put through the wringer."

Here are just a few of the factors that have kept investors nervous this year and have kept the stock market stuck in the middle of nowhere:

• Lack of trust: Both the curse and the blessing of the fallout from bankrupt energy trader Enron is that investors and regulators alike are more carefully scrutinizing corporate balance sheets and the way companies approach accounting. The result will ultimately be more accurate reports of how companies do business, but the journey of getting there has left investors increasingly nervous about corporate credibility.

The Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday came up with its own proposal to shore up investor confidence, recommending formation of an independent board to oversee the accountants who sign off on Corporate America's books.

The SEC Wednesday notified embattled drugmaker ImClone Systems Inc. that it may take action against the company for alleged improper disclosure of information about its cancer drug, ImClone said Wednesday.

ImClone's former chief executive, Sam Waksal, was arrested and charged with insider trading last week, after allegedly tipping off family members before news broke that the Food and Drug Administration refused to consider the firm's application for its cancer-fighting drug, Erbitux.

The SEC is also looking into Tyco, whose former CEO was indicted earlier this month for sales tax-evasion.

• Lack of jobs: While the unemployment rate declined in May, businesses added fewer jobs than expected, illustrating the fact that corporations are not yet ready to begin aggressively replacing the more than 1 million jobs they cut last year and adding to fears of a so-called "jobless recovery."
• A shaky recovery: May economic data showed signs of strength in the manufacturing and services sectors of the economy. But consumer sentiment, which had managed to hold up despite stock fluctuation, showed a decline in April. A May reading due out Friday is expected to show another slight decline.

With all these competing influences, what are the prospects for a stock turnaround?

"Three years ago people actually thought that the Dow could go to 36,000 and it did the opposite," said Douglas Altabef, managing director at Matrix Asset Advisors. "It's when people have really given up on the prospect of a real rally that you see a real rally, but try telling that to most investors now. Three years ago there was no reality dose, today there's no perspective."

One positive sign is that the drought in corporate earnings is expected to begin winding down in the current quarter. According to tracking firm First Call, results in the next few quarters should start to look better.

After five consecutive quarters of declines in corporate earnings, the second quarter is expected to show a rise of 6.9 percent from the same period a year earlier. The third quarter is forecast to show growth of 26.5 percent and the fourth quarter is expected to show a gain of 39.2 percent.

Even though these numbers are likely to be scaled down as results roll in, still the reversal from contraction to growth should put some fuel into Wall Street's thirsty engine.

Altogether, corporate earnings are expected to grow 14.6 percent in 2002 from the previous year. That again is forecast to jump to 20.3 percent in 2003.

But any recovery is still subject to the impact of continued economic and geopolitical concerns, as well as some sort of repair to the break in corporate trust. Even with these factors improving, in the context of current earnings, most market watchers agree that stocks are still pretty expensive.

"Stocks remain richly valued as a multiple of earnings," Dorsey Farr, senior economist at Balentine & Co. wrote in a note to clients Tuesday morning. "If earnings do not accurately represent the fortunes of Corporate America, then stock prices may be even more expensive than the statistics suggest."

And as long as stocks remain overpriced relative to earnings, investors may choose to continue playing it cautious.

"You're really going to need to see some bellwether companies saying the quality of earnings is improving and that it's due to growth, not cost-cutting, before investors are going to be willing to set aside the skepticism," said Matrix's Altabef.