Let's face it, all those things you heard about efficient markets over the years were hogwash. In the short term, markets are not efficient and as we have learned on too many occasions, not even rational. If everything was always priced just right you would not have winners and losers and everyone would live happily ever after. For some things the short term might be as long as five to ten years.

Three years ago I lost out on the purchase of a property close to my office when someone decided it was worth 40% more than I did. At the time I told the broker the buyer was nuts and would lose money, if not more. I remember the broker telling me that the property was worth what someone is willing to pay. That is not true, but far be it from me too convince a broker that just made a terrific deal for his client that people often pay more than something is worth. To make a long story short, the property is now in default and I am trying to buy the note from the bank that made a bad loan accepting a silly valuation.

The market may be entering a more volatile period or it may just go sideways for a while. The last few weeks the market has been down. Maybe it is because the rapid rise mid-March through mid-June is forcing people to stop and take a breath, or perhaps it is because investors are having second thoughts about whether the "green shoots" Ben Bernanke spoke of in regards to a healing economy were really just weeds.

All in all, I still believe that there is opportunity in this market and I have been trying to point out how investors can get in with as little risk as possible, while being rewarded for their patience now, and when a recovery ensues ---- whenever that is. To this end, two weeks ago I posted Serious Money: Five high-yield, safe, diversified stocks and decided to follow up with another five I think will produce similar results.

Billions of investment dollars are sitting on the sidelines for fear of entering the market at the wrong time and losing more money after taking a bath last year. However, the market seems to have hit bottom last March and many investors missed the 40% gain from that point to now.

Market prognosticators are spewing out opinions faster than the public can grasp, or understand. I choose to stick with basic fundamental value propositions and ignore the noise.

I have been buying for the past eight months and riding the market waves, good and bad, to huge gains -- so far. Maybe I will be giving some back, maybe not, but I have also been encouraging readers to take something off the table, in several recent posts.

[Update: Find more Comfort Zone Investing here and more stocks to buy here.]

Ted Allrich is the founder of The Online Investor and author of the just released book: Comfort Zone Investing: Build Wealth And Sleep Well At Night. In this weekly column, he'll offer advice to investors who are just getting started.

By definition, no. Stocks carry risk. If you don't want risk, put your money in treasury bills or under the mattress. But don't expect much of a return, if any. Having said that, certain stocks do have attributes that make them relatively, and I emphasize this word, relatively, safer investments than others.

First and foremost, they have solid earnings. The best ones increase earnings every year for several years, no matter what the economy does. Examples: Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO), Johnson and Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG), Colgate-Palmolive Co. (NYSE: CL). If you've watched these stocks during the last 6 months, they've gone down but nowhere near the depths of most others. They have solid earnings investors can count on. Investors pay for that.

Are you looking for stability in a down market? If you come across Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK), you found it!. Yes, I have been a Merck cheerleader the past few years and I think it is one of the safe havens (how daring of me) for 2008. In fact, the large pharmaceutical companies have traditionally been safe havens when the stock market is under stress.

As I type away today, the market is down again, no it's up, no it's down -- It finally ended higher with a nice gain, but Merck has been going only up, closing today at $60.50. The stock could actually trade horizontally this year, or offer only a slight gain over the year. Given the negativity in the market, that might be just fine when you add in Merck's dividend.

Below is Merck's five-year chart, which indicates the real time to buy was during the height of the Vioxx scandal in the fall of 2004, although you would have done fine almost any time in the past three years. The stock has not fully regained its past glory but it is heading there.

Ninety days have passed since I posted Scary market -- any safe stocks? and Still scary market -- more SAFE HAVENS.

When I wrote these original posts the market was on shaky ground with higher fuel prices, interest rate uncertainty, housing market questions, common summer market doldrums, and concerns about upcoming earnings reports, consumer spending, and inflation. Well, we made it through this valley of worry with fuel prices declining, interest rates stabilizing, employment and consumer confidence robust, and reported earnings primarily to the upside. The stock market has been riding this wave upward with the DJIA hitting news highs.

I revisited the stock suggestions I made in these posts after thirty days and decided to continue to track them. I believe in some level of accountability if one is blabbing (or blogging) about a subject, and especially since I have been writing for the Blogging Stocks site. All of the stocks have moved up in the last sixty days, but since my original posts in July, the share prices of six have moved up and two have gone down. I have not changed my mind about any of these companies or their stocks during this period.

We considered buying some more United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE:UPS) and did not; we added to our position in the Southern Company (NYSE:SO) instead, which has done well, and Huaneng Power International, Inc. (NYSE:HNP) which has done even better; see: GOOG is OK but HNP could be better!

They are listed in the order I mentioned them in my earlier posts.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.B) closed Tuesday at $3,560 up from $2,995.

Washington Mutual, Inc. (NYSE:WM) closed Tuesday at $43.00 down from $45.50.

Almost 60 days have passed since I posted Scary market -- any safe stocks? and Still scary market -- more SAFE HAVENS.

Interestingly five of these eight companies made the top 20 (actually top 17) on Barron's list of most repected companies based on capitalzation in the current issue of Barron's (subscription required). The other three are not large enough to make the poll. Even more interesting GE, PG & BRK are three of the top five. Is it possible these Wall Street money managers have been reading my stories?... Naw -- and I certainly have not been talking to them.