And the ratio of bond to stock yields has fallen below 2, which is historically low.

Based on interest rates, stock yields and other market condition, he concluded that the fund should put 75 percent of its assets into stocks.

A high stock yield may indicate that lower earnings are depressing the stock price.

It warned that stock yields had been below bond yields back in 1929, and look what happened.

But stock yields have become downright puny as prices have gone through the roof.

Mutual fund managers were right to retain the lowest cash reserves in 20 years at a time when stock yields are at a 70-year low.

But as the boom faded and stock yields declined, high interest rates became a more crucial lure for foreign capital to cover the current-account deficit.

Because of interest rate fears, more investors are using asset allocation strategies that call for portfolio shifts based on correlations between interest rates and stock yields.

Not until the 1950's did stock yields fall below those of bonds, as investors concluded that the possibility of capital gains more than offset the lower yield.

For her part, Miriam had by then moved into splendid lodgings near Leicester Fields, where she watched her Company stock yield profits.

"No matter what the relative dividend yield is indicating, an individual stock yield averaging less than 4 percent is not a candidate for purchase," Mr. Spare said.

These new-style investors, hard City men with long pedigrees but little sense of history, felt no allegiance to the traditions of the Company; their only concern was to increase stock yields.

The average corporation is assuming an 8.5 percent to 9 percent return on its pension assets at a time when bond yields are around 5 percent and stock yields are around 1.5 percent.

Every day, a virtual data industry chugs out new numbers on earnings, stock yields and trading levels that Wall Street's horde of analysts pick through in search of the best - and the worst - investments.

Mr. Peters, who edits a monthly newsletter, Morningstar Dividend Investor, said that an extremely high stock yield could offer one of the easiest ways to spot a company on the verge of financial distress.

High Index Levels Seen Like some other professional managers, Mr. Hodgman sees such measures as stock yields, price-earnings ratios and the multiple of stock prices to book value as dangerously close to their historic highs.