Des gouts et des couleurs, ne faut pas discuter.

Is this as good as it gets? Should we be taking profits? Should we be getting out of the market?

My crystal ball is mixed. Yes, we have had incredible gains from one of our large cap shares, and even more amazing jumps in a yield play I advised loading up on big time just 5 weeks ago. Yet as the saying goes, Wall St. (and other markets) rise on a wall of worry.

While we did not benefit from the trends, Wall St. has favored high-yield bonds (including those from emerging markets), scary stocks (BRIC country issues), and financials. We are in risk-back-on mode for now although with Brazil seeing today both drops in share price and drops in the real, at least one of the BRICs has switched to rehab. The reason is not politics (although Brasilia politics can be dangerous to your wealth.) The reason is fear that China is going into a slow-growth period when everyone gets back to work for the Year of the Dragon. There are plenty of other worries.

Start with crooks and incompetents such as Madoff and Corzine. Consider panic fear of inflation and debt. Add fear of stocks as too risky (especially among ''Generation Y'' younger Americans according to Kopin Tan in Barron's). Sprinkle with persistent double-dip talk. Note the unbelievable rush into T-bills and TIPs.

And then there's the news. Greece, not too surprisingly, refuses to let its budget process be taken over by well-meaning non-Greek Diktats. Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos totally rejected a German scheme for the eurozone to impose a budget overseer on Greece in return for a new 130 bn euro bailout.

Let's not even think about the appalling political process going on in the Land of the Free, heir to Greek Democracy. Between Congress and the Republican primaries I keep having to tell myself what Churchill said: “the only thing worse than democracy is the alternative.” Meanwhile our housing remain an overhang on the recovering economy, with defaulted and under-water mortgages holding back many regions of the country. On Wall St., housing shares are dropping like bricks, with the Philadelphia Housing Sector Index down 1.9%. Particularly hard-hit are fun places, Las Vegas, Florida, and even the Hamptons nearer here.

So perhaps we should sell out and put our money under the mattress for a change? We would save on gouging bank fees and the taxes normal folks have to pay on dividends and interest. We could buy a house by the water.

But that is not what I pitch. Stock picking is my metier, stock advice. In fact, our portfolios are now fully loaded to the point where subscribers  complain about how much investing they have to do. The fact is, our team of eager-beaver reporters keep finding great bargains.

Right now China is in visit-Mom hiatus, which happens every year at New Year. It will resume its frenetic growth when people return to their jobs. Seasonal drops in demand for imports will pick up soon. Chartists don't realize that lunar dates vary.

More for paid subscribers follows from Ireland to Israel, from Britain to Australia, from Finland to Norway, from Singapore to Canada, from India to Peru, plus three notes about taste: