So your conclusion is that buying stocks with low debt and low price to book at the top of a market is no protection for downside risk. It is not however, a predictive indicator that can be used to judge what one should or should not buy at this juncture. In fact, one could argue that in a severe decline cash is the only holding that may be a safe investment and even then we had one money market fund break the buck.
Beware 'Cheap' Stocks [View article]