Share prices around the world are on a tear. Most developed markets are near five-year highs. But what’s going on? For how long can it continue?

It seems clear that the RBA’s move will continue to drive Aussie investors from term deposits into dividend paying stocks in the hunt for a reasonable yield. A falling Aussie changes the valuation metrics for a lot of stocks. So today’s Money Weekend will leave the currency wars behind and focus on value.

‘Safe’ dividend stocks have outperformed all comers during the recent bull run. Some now look expensive compared to other sectors. So what should you do?

Foreign investors can get nearly twice as good a yield in Australian dividend stocks as they can in stocks anywhere else.

It’s a great time to buy growth stocks. We said that a few weeks ago as stocks hit the peak. To us, dividend stocks looked overvalued at worst and fairly valued at best.

We had lunch with a couple of old broker pals yesterday. The broad opinion was that we were all worried that the stock market was heading for a fall. But not the whole stock market, just one bunch of stocks in particular.

If you think there’s any link between the rise of the stock market and the health of the US economy, then you might want to double-check the Dow’s value in real inflation-adjusted dollars. Alternatively, you could judge the Dow in terms of the Dow/Gold ratio.

As far as stock investing is concerned the only two things you need to look for…the two things that move markets…are interest rates and earnings.

We’re backing this market pretty hard. We don’t believe the low interest rate story has fully played out in the Australian stock market. Yes, stocks have taken off since last June, but the Aussie market is still 29% below the 2007 peak.

Well, it looks as though we’ve got a new excuse for the stock market to fall. And this one is the scariest of all. It’s ‘The Sequester‘.

When a business buys another business at the top of a market cycle, it runs a big risk of overpaying. That’s the fate that could face Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett. Buffett is paying double the price that Heinz traded at during the slump in 2009.

The easy trade since the middle of last year has been to buy dividend-paying stocks. So, what do investors do now? How can you maximise your stock market returns after shares have already gone up?

It’s either the best time in the past year to buy stocks…or the worst. If you take a straw poll of my colleagues you’ll probably get half screaming it’s a buy, and the other half screaming it’s a sell. When you buy any investment you should always have two questions in mind…

Last year I recommended 5 beaten down blue-chip stocks to buy. So how are they doing now… and with the recent stock market rally are they still a good buy?

In today’s Money Morning I’ll show you why late-comers to the recent stock market rally shouldn’t panic. As I’ll explain, the market is at a key point that will likely catch a lot of investors and traders off guard.

What’s the next catchphrase the financial drones will make up as an excuse to buy or sell stocks? Who knows? But to be honest, we don’t care. We’ve long stopped caring what the self-important drones think. We’d rather stick to picking good stocks at a fair price.Trouble is where do you start?

In a world of low growth, the dynamics of corporate earnings, which ultimately underlie stock prices, have become more complex…

You shouldn’t put all your cash in the stock market, but as we’ve said for a long time, you should have some exposure, whether it’s with your ‘safe money’, your ‘punting money’, or both. And if we know anything about stock markets, it tells us one thing – this bull-run could last a while longer yet…

When we see stocks rally hard and fast, we start looking around for ideas for you to protect the gains you’ve built in recent months. With the main Australian stock index up 15.5% since last August, it now makes sense to look at ‘stock insurance’.

We’re not saying stock markets will keep going up. Nothing goes up forever. But we do wonder: has the market finally weaned itself off central bankers to focus on company fundamentals?

In share trading, remaining stubborn in your view is a death wish because the stock market can do anything. As the old saying goes, ‘Both bulls and bears can make money in the markets but pigs get slaughtered.’

Why would anyone put more money into bonds? The returns are minuscule. Prices are so high and yields so low that even in the best-case scenarios, you’ll still barely make a bean. And with the worst of the crisis behind us, bonds now look very vulnerable to any rise in inflation.

The mathematical reality is that the world’s major currencies can’t all be catastrophically weak against each other. It’s impossible. But the winner may surprise you.