The market may just be ahead of itself in consideration of the rate at which an economic recovery is possible. The market may be just taking a breath before moving up again. I actually do not look at these things, but if I was to comment I would also add that it's summer. Vacation activity will heat up along with the weather, and the market often cools down under these conditions.

Getting back to Microsoft, it's time to put it on the watch list or even to start accumulating shares building a position until the market moves again. Despite Mr. Market, "Mr. Softie" has many things going for it that should give it some stability in a poor market and some heat in a lively one.

To some degree (pun intended) MSFT just created it's own heat, and competition for Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) when it introduced a new search engine called Bing with a lot of enticing features. It is already starting to grow market share in early results.

Then there is "Windows 7" that will replace the less than well received "Windows Vista" which left business folks like me to stick with Windows XP. However, the new program promises to be easier to use, take less memory and speed, and should finally get XP users to upgrade without a rebellion.

The fall is also the time when retail eyes start glazing over about holiday spending, and Microsoft should continue to do business with it's XBOX gaming system.

Even though MSFT has historically made missteps in it's early attempts to compete with more agile and creative companies, its cash hordes and tenacity keep it a powerhouse that all eyes are trained on.

Given all the developments at MSFT, the relative calm in the stock with a beta of 1.1 and a PEG ratio of 1.19, to go along with a historically low P/E of 13, a 2.19% yield that has been raised this year when others are cutting plus tens of billions in cash to raise it some more how can you not give this stock a look.

Still not convinced? Microsoft continues to have gigantic positive cash flow stemming from 30% profit margins and offers investors a freakish ROE and ROIC at 50%!

I have been making a big deal lately about taking something off the table if you have profits you want to protect. On the other hand I am not one to keep big cash positions. Microsoft could be one more place to set some of your winnings aside -- and come the end of the year, there is a good chance MSFT will give you still more profits to protect.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I do not own shares of MSFT but may very soon.