Stocks hit yet another new high. But is market overheating? NEW YORK -- As stocks notched yet another new high, some on Wall Street see flashing yellow lights as this year's rally steams ahead. The Dow Jones industrial rose 70.96 points, or 0.5%, to 15,821.63 on Wednesday. The blue-chip index of stocks is up 21% for the year. But as stocks climb even higher amid a sluggish economy, there are increasing signs the market is getting pricey. One closely watched measure indicates stocks are about as expensive as they were in 2008, before the financial crisis. Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller's cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratio, or CAPE, stood at 24.42 on Nov. 1. Stocks haven't been at that level since January 2008. "The stock market is not cheap," said Barry Knapp, who heads U.S. equity strategy at Barclays in New York. It's not excessively high, but it's on the high side. Many on Wall Street have credited the Fedral Reserve's easy-money policies with helping fuel this year's rally. By buying bonds to keep interest rates low as a way to stimulate growth, the Fed has also made riskier investments such as stocks more attractive as savings accounts and bonds yield little. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 rose 14.31 points, or 0.81%, to 1,782 on Wednesday. The S&P 500 is up nearly 25% this year. But stocks are nowhere near the levels of the frothy dot-com boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s. In December 1999, Shiller's CAPE index hit 44.20. The CAPE's average over the last half century is about 19.58. "We do share this concern that the stock market is expensive," Knapp said. We're not at all-time extremes, but it's on the high side. Indeed, Knapp noted, stocks plunged in late 2008 not because there was an equity bubble. Back then, it was the housing bubble that burst. A financial crisis and a steep economic downturn ensued, destroying corporate profits. "The stock market went down because we had a sharp recession and earnings collapsed," Knapp said. Many professional investors expect a sharp pullback or correction in the stock market once the Fed decides to taper its stimulus program known as quantitative easing. The Fed had been widely expected to taper in September, but the central bank delayed its pullback. Washington's latest fiscal crisis (remember the debt ceiling debate and shutdown?) has many on Wall Street expecting the Fed to taper early next year. "What we think happened when the Fed postponed "Sep-taper" was they stole some returns from 2014 and pulled them into 2013," Knapp said. Former Nicolas Cage-owned acreage sells in Malibu Macy's beats earnings forecasts, enters holidays optimistic Invest like a billionaire: New index tracks stocks the wealthy own