A pair of Abilene financial experts expressed continuing confidence Thursday that all would be well with the roiling U.S. economy -- in time.

"The market keeps going down, but kind of the same reasons are still in place," said Terry Pope, associate dean of Abilene Christian University's college of business administration. "The credit markets are still locked up."

Abilene broker Wes Bennett said he thought more time was needed to funnel liquidity into the system.

"People are so nervous out there and so scared. And you can't blame them," he said. "What you see on TV, it sounds pitiful, and it's just causing a panic out there that is just unprecedented. You just don't see that normally."

"We're just going to deal with it a little while longer," he said of the present financial situation.

But Bennett said he remained confident investors would "be OK, eventually."

Changes to the financial mix since earlier in the week are twofold, Pope said.

"One is the plan for the government to take a direct equity interest in banks -- as part of the bailout plan that they would inject capital directly into the banks," Pope said. "That seems to have generally been very well-received."

If all the recent $700 billion government bailout amounted to was buying securities, banks might still be strapped for capital depending on the price the government paid, he said.

"So by injecting capital directly, that's probably a good idea," he said, something he called "groundbreaking from a historical perspective."

Another important announcement was federal plans to participate in the commercial paper market, a method many corporations use to raise short-term funds.

"That market has been frozen up, which is a significant deal from a corporate standpoint," Pope said. "The government intervention there is that they would actually buy some of that commercial paper to help get that market on track."

That should help, and is also history-making, he said, "all of which is probably necessary at this point."

Many people are taking money out of mutual funds and putting much of it into low- to no-interest alternatives to simply preserve their principal, he said.

"There's a lot of that going on," he said. "My recommendation would still be to sit tight."

Not all was doom and gloom Thursday, Bennett said.

IBM, for example, surprised Wall Street with a healthy profit in the third quarter and a reaffirmation of its earnings outlook for the rest of the year, The Associated Press reported.

"IBM came out with some great news today," Bennett said, although he acknowledged the positive revelations had not settled fears in the financial arena.