Signs of a Market Top

A surge of emotion has carried the market a long way, but buyers have stopped throwing their money at just anything. One senses that they are becoming more discriminating about quality and bedeviling details. Frequent reversals and backtracking have fostered doubts about this market's staying power. Catastrophic collapse is still a remote worry, but so we all thought last year about the global banking system.

The $1 bargain bin at Barnes & Noble.