Wall St Week Ahead: Cloudy valuations give investors pause in buying beaten-up U.S. stocks

Stocks are far cheaper than at the start of the year

Whipsawing bond yields, surging oil prices and a Federal Reserve bent on squashing the worst inflation in four decades are hampering investors' ability to assess U.S. stock valuations, even as the market's tumble creates potential bargains, Qazet.az reports.

Without a doubt, stocks are far cheaper than at the start of the year, following a 23% year-to-date decline in the S&P 500 (.SPX) that confirmed a bear market for the index earlier this week.

Whether they are cheap enough, however, is less certain. Market volatility and a rapidly changing macroeconomic landscape have clouded metrics that investors typically use to value stocks, such as corporate earnings and Treasury yields, keeping some potential buyers on the sideline