I said my piece last week about the market's recent bender, dubbing it "ridiculous" and inspiring a legion of readers to heap on potshots (comes with the territory) and praise (thanks, Dad!).

One comment in particular resonated with me:

Are investors are losing their minds? Back when the Dow was 14,000 who would have thought that at Dow 8,400 people would be complaining about irrational exuberance because the market was too high? This really is laughable. Buffett liked stocks when the market fell to 10,000 and I have to think fair value for the market is still above 8,400. Dow 6,600 was a fiercely manic over correction and I wouldn't bet on getting back to it.

Fair point -- up to a point
The phrase "fair value" caught my attention. In my opinion, a market that's fallen more than 50% from its peak may or may not be fairly valued. After all, aggregate valuation -- which indices provide -- takes the good, the bad, and the ugly, and rolls 'em up into one easy-to-grok number.

Properly dissected, that number can be useful for identifying broad areas of fish-in-a-barrel opportunity. Reeling in keepers, though, requires fair value work on individual names. Indeed, the market's recently rising tide has lifted even the leakiest of boats, with the likes of Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup (NYSE: C), and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) all sprinting to gains of more than 50% over the past month.

That makes no sense. After all, each of the above companies apparently requires even more cash. Not coincidentally, they also sport balances sheets riddled with more mysteries than Clue.

Colonel Mustard, meet thy candlestick
If Wall Street really does hate mystery, color me mystified by its reaction to the market's current page-turner.

Whichever way market winds blow, though, opportunities abound among companies that lend themselves to, you know, actual analysis instead of Agatha Christie-style intrigue.

In terms of whittling down a massive stock-shopping wish list, I recommend focusing at first on two key metrics: free cash flow (FCF), the lifeblood of any company that wants to remain a going concern, and managerial acumen, as gauged by return on equity (ROE). Continued...