Gloom may give way to pleasant surprise for market

Perhaps the biggest investor shock of the second half of 2012 would be if everything turns out OK and the world doesn’t fall apart.

As stock and bond markets hit the half-way point in yet another year of bank stress, euro crisis, and disappointing global growth, early-year optimism has dissipated just as it did last year and the year before that.

But this year the gloom is already pervasive. Europe’s inability to draw a line under the eurozone’s debt crisis has been the chief frustration.