Just as stocks look their scruffiest and the economy looks its iffy-est, a quirky breed of market watchers see the sunniest days ahead.

The 401(k) crowd might be sick of stocks. But several market timers technical analysts who dig for patterns in the stock trades are a pretty bullish bunch.

Upbeat signals popped on the charts when the Dow Jones industrial average looked the worst and hit 7,702.34 July 23, said David White, president of Estate Planning Group in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and Grosse Pointe, Mich.

“The signal was very bullish,” White said.

Don Wolanchuk, president of Wolanchuk.com in Roseville, Mich., says the “market is set up to go crazy.” The summer sell-off is the “precursor of the next leg of the bull market, which will make the bull market of the ’90s look like child’s play.”

Joseph Granville, an old-time market timer who is 78, proclaims: “We have seen the bottom. And I know that because we have had a selling climax.”

Are these guys right?

Well, first a disclaimer.

“We don’t always make money and our system isn’t always 100 percent right,” said White, whose computer models wisely went bearish in March.

Difficult profession

Market timing isn’t an exact science. History has some amazing goof-ups.

Granville, who publishes the Granville Market Letter in Kansas City, Mo., became a celebrity after his bear call in the 1970s.

But he took his lumps for telling clients to “sell all stocks” in January 1981 the eve of the biggest bull market in history.

Wolanchuk, who once worked for Granville, correctly predicted that the Dow would break 10,000 a brave call in the fall of 1995 when the Dow was about 4,800. He became a nationally known forecaster after receiving 17 top awards by Timer Digest, which tracks market timer forecasts.

The Dow first closed above 10,000 in March 1999. But Wolanchuk’s forecast that the Dow would hit 19,280 fell short. The Dow never got near that.

Some market timers such as Granville and Wolanchuk sell their timing forecasts through newsletters or hot lines. Others, such as White, manage money for individuals using timing techniques.

More traditional financial advisers say you cannot win by trying to time the market. You have to get two bets right when to sell and when to buy. So they tell you to buy quality stocks and hold onto them for the long haul.

Yet market timers say their time has come. Plenty could dismiss market timing during the roaring bull market. When stock prices are going straight up, who cares when you buy or sell? It’s a different story, timers say, when the market is falling or choppy.

“The buy-and-hold approach will be the road to nowhere,” said Frank Cochrane, president of Investment Timing Consultants in Farmington Hills, Mich. His firm manages about $50 million in assets. The firm requires a minimum of $100,000 to invest.

Market timers look good today because in May many had been bearish. Cochrane was on “Nightly Business Report” on PBS on May 10. And as the Dow hovered around 10,000, he told viewers that he would “raise a lot of cash here.”

“The next six months, I think, are going to be very, very sour for stock prices,” Cochrane said.

Many timers but not Cochrane turned more bullish in late July after the market meltdown.

Five of the top 10 market timers are bullish and believe that it’s time to buy stocks, according to Timer Digest newsletter in Greenwich, Conn. Three were bearish and thought stocks were set to fall further. Two were neutral, keeping money in money market accounts.

Why the switch?

“The market has declined substantially,” said Jim Schmidt, Timer Digest’s publisher.

It’s a game of numbers, not news events.

What to watch

Market timers don’t ponder which political party has the upper hand. They aren’t glued to CNBC trying to figure out whether the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates.

“Like all games, this one is played by the clock,” Wolanchuk said. And the time is up for the more than 2 1/2-year-old bear market, he said.

Sure, times are uncertain and all timers do not see the numbers going in the same direction.

Where Wolanchuk sees an incredible upside, Cochrane sees an incredible downside.

Cochrane says the Dow is heading for 5,500 this year.

“I sound like a big, old bear, but I think when we see this downturn in the next three or four months, it will be a crashing downturn. It will take everything with it,” Cochrane said.

Market timers can come up with vastly different forecasts because they can sift through any basket of indicators and there are up to 300 clues out there to watch. Some move in and out of stocks daily, if necessary.

“You look at moving averages. You look at volume. You look at what the pros are doing vs. what the public is doing,” said White, who calls himself an “active asset allocator” because his firm makes momentum plays and doesn’t shift out of stocks as often as some market timers.

Both White and Wolanchuk note that the pros have been buying not selling.

“We always track the smart money,” Wolanchuk said. “That’s why they live in big houses.”