Barry Ritholtz Stocks Quotations

To know whether stocks are cheap or pricey, we typically look at price-to-earnings ratio. Valuation is a tougher question than many folks realize.

Here is a dirty little secret: Stock-picking is wildly overrated. Sure, it makes for great cocktail party chatter, and what is more fun than delving into a company's new products? But the truth is that individual stocks are riskier than broad indices.

Truth be told, most financial television bores me. Two or more people discussing the latest economic trends or hot stocks is not especially entertaining.

If tech stocks keep going up with no pause, they will get insanely frothy.

We were in this post-election trading range from November to April, and that broke down, ... The bull market has at least one more major run in it, but I think it's probably going to be sometime over the summer, when stocks get appreciably cheaper.

Earnings have been coming in across the board pretty good, but the problem hasn't been earnings. The issue is the forward-looking statements for the fourth quarter or 2006. Despite good numbers, you see some stocks getting punished. It's a function of the outlook.

Tech stocks are probably a little pricey. But they're not stupid pricey.

The big issue is decelerating earnings growth. Earnings will still be higher but the ideal time to buy stocks is when earnings go from awful to not so bad as opposed to going from great to good.