Cloudy valuations give investors pause in buying beaten-up US stocks

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.

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 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