He relies on more traditional yardsticks.

He warns that "the imbalance of wealth and democracy is unsustainable, at least by traditional yardsticks."

When investors choose among behemoths like AT&T, Coca-Cola and General Electric, many of the traditional yardsticks don't seem to work.

The eventual result of an indexing boom, said Ms. Brown, the Prudential analyst, is that the stocks in the index could become overvalued when measured against traditional yardsticks like earnings and book value.

Again there were traditional yardsticks - the employee's reviews, both by supervisors and peers, and their compensation - and some oddball ones.

Another important signal: Finland now has the lowest real interest rates in Europe, historically beating even the traditional yardstick, Germany, in the price of capital.

The Fed will abandon its traditional yardstick for steering the economy - money supply - because it has become unreliable.

The Fed's decision to leave rates unchanged was surprising, he said, because by the traditional yardsticks, the economy was strong enough to rekindle inflation.

"However, Fed officials continue to be the most important factor in market opinion, since they are willing to put aside traditional yardsticks."

Mr. Malone speaks of reported profits, the traditional yardstick of corporate performance, with disdain.