It must be time to pay the piper. It seems all of our efforts to avoid the consequences of a recession in the aftermath of the technology bust in 2002/03 has just created an even more disastrous recession in 2008/09.

When you reach a point where the fear, and pain, and worry, are so great that valuations have no meaning as a consideration in business transactions and investments you have a dire situation. When you can no longer assess what something is worth you really are in trouble. Regardless of what my brain thinks, my heart feels we are there.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled again today relentlessly seeking a bottom that was not there. If not for the market closing the it might have kept falling. It ended the day at 9447.11, down 508.39 losing another 5%.

In retrospect the economic soft landing that Alan Greenspan manufactured with very low rates, that were kept low for far too long resulted in interest rate euphoria. That allowed the desire to buy a home to ramp up into wild speculation, ever increasing valuations, and development, and onto home equity loans at 100% of bloated values. Valuations that were unsupportable. When that started to run dry people started to tap into their credit cards with reckless abandon supporting their unrealistic lifestyles, and on the other end of the spectrum just to 'make ends meet'. Well, the 'ends are not meeting any more'.

Earlier today I posted No Cramer, now is not the time to panic! and I have not changed my mind but in watching my fellow investors increasingly scavenge for little bits of liquidity during this discouraging tail spin it seems only time and a lower standard of living will settle things. I think folks understand the time element and are willing to tighten their belts too. I am not sure most people have come to grips with the fact that we may be entering a new economy -- and it is not the one that was advertised.

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..

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose today by 187 points, a 1.41% rise. The NASDAQ rose by 32 points, or 1.28% and the vaunted S&P 500 Index by 22 points or 1.52%. The markets were relatively benign until the details emerged from the Federal Reserve's Beige Book.

The Beige Book is released eight times per year, and is the collective wisdom of the 12 different Fed Governors. The news was better than expected, and the 10-year treasury note, which was topping out at 5.25%, began to sink and investors re-focused on the equities market.

The details from the Beige Book report was just the music the equity investor wanted -- needed -- to hear. Capital goods orders were picking up and the job market was, indeed, stabilizing. To boot, the real symphony continued when the Fed indicated there was no upward pressure on wage prices, thus stemming one of the legs of inflation. Consumer spending appears to remain in a healthy pattern, with general retail sales up a surprising 1.6%, versus the expectations of 0.8%. The consumer is still in a position to sustain economic growth.

The indicators from the Federal Reserve basically put the "R -word": Recession, back into the closet.

Once again the Dow is up and the NASDAQ is down. Yesterday I posted Dow up, NASDAQ down -- the run to quality continues and today it looks like more of the same. The Dow closed at 13,383.84, up 37.06, and the NASDAQ closed down 21.15 to 2,525.29.

Although the Dow was up, my own portfolios had more losers than winners, even though I do not have many tech or internet plays. The good thing about that: I may be able to pick up some stocks that are on my watch list that have been just out of the range but now look like more of a bargain. Value investors should all be doing the same thing; watch your watch list and, if you do not have one, create one.

I think it is not just Dow stocks that did well, but also very large companies that are doing better. While the Dow consists of large cap dividend-paying companies, it also includes two NASDAQ stocks: Intel Corp (INTC), down $0.11 to $22.01, and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), up $0.03 to $30.90, so even that presents a mixed message.

If I was an analyst I would be writing that this market; with each of the indices heading down a different path; is in search of some 'leadership' or 'conviction'. In the absence of such we are drifting and muddling along without a rudder. To me that is another indication that things may be topped out. Still, I maintain that all that is just Wall Street lingo, and I am not an analyst, so I say just stick to watching stocks one by one strictly investing on a fundamental basis.

Those of you who are new to BloggingStocks can check out my other stories and read Chasing Value or Serious Money to find more potential opportunities and verify my track record as well.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. Check out his other posts for BloggingStocks here.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) represents the stocks of big companies. The Dow represents stocks with dividends. The Dow is lean on technology and newer companies. And when the Dow is up and NASDAQ is down heading into the spring and summer doldrums, it can only mean one thing -- investors are becoming more cautious.

The DJIA closed up 20.56 to 1346.78. The NASDAQ closed down 15.78 to 2546.44. To be clear, I do not consider these figures to be statistically significant in magnitude to mean anything by themselves, except that this is happening more often and the DJIA keeps threatening new highs.

From my perspective, investors should generally ignore this noise and let the momentum guys, technical analysts, and traders worry about the ups and downs and trends. Investors should continue to look at individual stocks and the fundamentals of the companies they represent to find long-term value. However, when the market reaches higher and higher valuations, it does signal that patience is in order, and that investors should not change their approach or investing standards, there may be more opportunity in the next few months than there is now.

Those of you who are new to BloggingStocks can check out my other stories and read Chasing Value or Serious Money to find more potential opportunities and verify my track record as well.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. Check out his other posts for BloggingStocks here.

The Dow (DJIA) moved up nicely, hitting all time highs in the past month. It has been rising consistently from its July low, closing yesterday at 12,471.32 and during the day reaching an all-time high of 12,491.91. For the past couple of weeks it has been moving up and down trading in a 250 point range, about 2%.

Is the Dow just taking a breath before the "January effect" takes place moving it still higher? Is there truly a January effect? Is the current movement just our combined tax planning adjustments? The Holidays affecting volume? A distraction? There are those who say the Dow is pausing just to shrink back to some technical level of resistance. I don't buy this technical analysis (crap) either. The Dow will move with earnings reports, interest rates and employment levels and not benchmarks. For now all three are humming along.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) reached an all time high on November 22, 2006 of $513 and has since pulled back to close yesterday at $468.63 with a trailing P/E of 60. It is still over priced in my book. James Cramer of CNBC and TheStreet.com has said it will be at $750 in twelve months (11 now) and quipped that he would like to say it will go to $850 but that might trigger an SEC investigation. I say HOGWASH! GOOG is just as likely to be where I theorized during the summer, closer to $440 than $850. If you listen to Cramer's hype, Google will be bigger than Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE), Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT), or even ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) in the foreseeable future.

In correspondence with Amey Stone, (one of our beloved editors) almost two years ago, during a very shaky market, I did some rare speculating.

I preface this article by acknowledging that such exercises are usually pointless and not something I engage in very often. My deep value investing style is focused on companies and not markets, facts and verifiable high probability theories. Often I am the contrarian as in Me and my Merck: Should I keep it? Sometimes I am the curmudgeon (hopefully lovable curmudgeon) and I have scoffed at analysts (Analyzing the Analysts - It's all a joke right?) and prognosticators whose primary business is skimming fees from the top of your investment stash.

Among what I thought at the time were my verifiable high probability theories was that oil money, real estate money and Chinese money (from our sad trade deficit) was going to recirculate back into the stock market. Oil prices were just starting to move up, real estate was booming, and the Chinese were piling up billions of dollars of our treasury notes. Furthermore I thought the Chinese would not just be satisfied moving some of their debt instruments (bonds) into equities (stocks) but actually start shopping for U.S. companies. This came to pass in their acquisition of IBM's Think Pad (R) division by Levano, and their failed attempt to acquire Unocal, and they are still on the look-out for other opportunities.

So in early 2005 I made the case to Amey that we were going to see the Dow hit 11,000 by the end of the year and that we would hit 12,000 by the end of this year. Well of course the Dow Jones Industrial Average did hit 11,000 as anticpated climbing from about 10,000 mid year in '05 and I believe it will soon reach 12,000, maybe even by the end of the year, which was on my list of "speculations".

It's only a question of time. It's only another 3% +/- in a year of mixed results.

By the way, Warren Buffett comments about the trade deficit in a story about our loss of integrity in Warren Buffett, America's greatest storyteller.

So having just about hit all my targets from my notes to Amey of two years ago I started thinking about where we go from here. I think we are in for more of the same and for the same reasons. Plus a few new insights, if I may be so bold.