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You, our viewers, continually supply us with our best program topics. Latest example: The viewer who asked recently about one of Warren Buffett's favorite measures of the market's overall valuation, the ratio of all stocks' cumulative value to America's gross national product. We looked into it -- and, inspired by the question, into some of Buffett's other gauges of whether stocks are expensive or cheap. We presented our results on the Feb. 28 program under the title, "What Would Warren Do?" We were speculating, of course, as we pointed out -- but we have since received a concrete answer to the question.

The answer seemed pretty clear at the time. Turns out that ratio the viewer asked about has generally sat in the 40 percent to 80 percent range over the past 80 years. At the market's peak in 1929, just before the Great Crash, the ratio hit 109 percent. At the market peak three years ago, it hit an all-time high of 190 percent. We also found that Buffett has said as long as the ratio is in the 70 percent to 80 percent range, investing in stocks will probably work out well for you.

So what's the ratio today? A high 100 percent -- our first clue that Warren would not be buying.

Another of Buffett's favorite indicators of stock values is the level of interest rates - or, more precisely, his guess about whether rates are headed up or down. As he has noted, when rates rose steadily from the mid-'60s to the early '80s, stocks went nowhere. When rates fell steadily from the early '80s to the late '90s, stocks rocketed. Now, with rates at 40-year lows, which direction do they seem most likely to move? If you said "up," then that's another indication Warren isn't buying.

We said all this on the air. A few days later, Buffett gave his own answer to our question when he published -- in FORTUNE magazine and online -- an advance look at portions of his famous annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. He confirmed our speculation emphatically.

"We continue to do little in equities," he writes. He says he's "increasingly comfortable" with the stocks Berkshire already holds, since their earnings are going up even as their valuations are going down. Presumably that means he's confident they'll come back. But then he adds: "Though these enterprises have good prospects, we don't yet believe their shares are undervalued."

And then he dons a black cap and pronounces sentence on the market: "In our view, the same conclusion fits stocks generally. Despite three years of falling prices, which have significantly improved the attractiveness of common stocks, we still find very few that even mildly interest us. That dismal fact is testimony to the insanity of valuations reached during The Great Bubble. Unfortunately, the hangover may prove to be proportional to the binge."

In short, we guessed right: Warren would not be buying. Even he says so. I read his views with decidedly mixed emotions. They are what some of us have been saying for a while now: Stocks may be lower, but that doesn't mean they're low.

I suppose it's nice when a certified investing genius agrees with you on a matter of investing. On the other hand, I would have felt much better if he'd written a table-pounding argument for why stocks are a screaming buy. But he didn't. Because they aren't.

Post-script: Buffett also revealed at least some of what he has been buying. Care to guess? The answer is junk bonds. Only a few issues, out of the hundreds available, and of course he isn't saying which ones. He emphasizes that he realizes the risks he's taking. Junk bond issuers can be a pretty scaly bunch, and in any junk portfolio you can count on at least a few big losers. "So far, however, we have done reasonably well in this field," he says in that trademarked understatement that Berkshire investors have grown to love.

Post-post-script: A list of Berkshire's major common stock investments (those with a market value of more than $500 million at the end of 2002) will be posted March 8 at www.berkshirehathaway.com.