As I start to type this story, it's 2:59 and the DJIA chart I just saw read 11999.97, the tiniest tick shy of yesterday's 12,000 milestone, and 11.76 points off the record close. [By the time I published the market had closed two points above the 12,000 mark.] I know, yawn! Everyone's doing the same story. Dow 12,000, milestones in history. Right?

Right, and wrong. Let's do something else here, in this time that seems fraught with cliche and over-valuation. So many Wall Street pundits are saying, watch out! There's a slowdown ahead. And surely, many of these valuations seem high. Too high. But in my opinion, there are just as many stocks that have room to grow.

I'm looking at the numbers and I've found five Dow stocks to stay away from, and five that may still have some legs.

Five with room to zoom:

• 3M Company (NYSE:MMM), $79.20 up 3.66% today; 52-week high $88.35; 52-week low $67.05. P/E 17.47. Latest quarter results show it is up 6% on LCD growth. I think that P/E is nice and low for a company which, despite its industrial roots, is really an innovative company that actually makes things that people want. A good 10% below the 52-week high sounds like lots of room to me.

I'm looking at my screen and I rub my eyes. Could it be? On the left-hand column I read a headline, "Slowing Economy Spurs Bond Rally." Over there in the side bar is the cute box that shows the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500. The chart spikes peppily. "11610.55" is the bright number next to DJIA. "1330.60" reads the S&P 500 -- its five-year high. [Update: at market close, the S&P 500 had hit a brand-new five-year high of 1336.34, with the DJIA at its 2006 high and second-highest close ever, 16669.39.] The world is full of bright, happy green that seems to belie the sad economic data, the slow in advertising, the doom for American autos.

Could it be true?

It seems as if it is. One one side we have the DJIA and the S&P 500. The Dow's all-time high is 11,750 (140 90-ish points away), while the all-time closing high is only 11,722 (that's 111.45 52.61 points away from right now, if you're counting along with me). The S&P is raring to go, as well, creeping ever so slowly up towards its all-time high of 1,552 (although it's still 222 215 points away, 16.6% 16.1%). Strikingly, the current level is higher than the index has been for five-and-a-half years.

And yet, still, economy slumps, slows, dips, weakens. Why are consumers so confident, why are investors eagerly buying up stocks, while the rest of the indicators seem to warn them away? I've searched my brain for a creative answer, and can't discover one. What do you think?