Top managers from Legg Mason, including Chuck Royce, Hersh Cohen and Isaac Souede, think that stocks are priced for a depression but that a depression is unlikely (Souede thinks there is a 20% chance of a global depression). At Legg Mason’s year-end investment briefing, the managers said “the stock markets won’t rebound until the global credit crisis is fixed.” Royce, Legg’s ace small cap manager, “hopes to start seeing ‘signs of spring’ in the next six to nine months.” Cohen went on to say that he worries that many investors who have lost money in this market may not come back anytime soon and that he worries “about losing a generation of investors”