Whether CNBC is shouting success from the rafters or pouring gasoline on the subprime woes of the companies that they cover, it doesn't really matter: Value is the play that is always here to stay.

No matter what the conditions in the market overall, there are always specific large companies with good free cash flow and reasonable debt levels doing grungy and unsexy but very necessary things that either disappoint some analyst or become the target of the shorter jackals or just make the collective lemmings feel like jumping off of the cliff with the rest of the club.  They take a quick pilfering, er profit taking, and deflate like so much bad cheese soufflé.

CNBC, WSJ, analysts, and a lot of the talking heads that populate the financial news sphere keep talking to you about their worries for the forest when you invest in specific trees.  Even in the worst drought, a few trees still make it through.  The trick is to pick those trees that have had a bit of a case of bugs, but have fended that off and are now a lot healthier, or trees that can withstand pretty much anything slung at them.

The primary filter I employ for searching for stocks puts up very tough criteria: High free cash flow, low debt, a dividend greater than one I can get from a bank, and good management, trading at a 15% or better discount to fair market value.  Like all good cooks, I may have left an ingredient or two out of my recipe, but that is primarily it.

That tough filter creates a window that should only be 20-40 stocks at the most at any given time.  What's even more interesting is to see where that window opens when you pull up the curtain.

In the month of November and into early December, all you saw were largely bank stocks, for obvious reasons. Some great names, like Lloyds PLC (LYG) or Citigroup (C) became just downright bargains.

How do you stomach the roller coaster ride that these stocks go on for a period of time? By knowing that, bottom line, companies of this size, given the world economy which is still pretty good even with mortgage scandals, increased oil prices, and increased food prices, are still going to be the aircraft carriers moving through choppy waters, not the PT boats.

In happier times, you continue to buy the unhappiness of others. McDonalds (MCD) and the mad cow scares. Southwest (SWA), the only consistently profitable airline, back when the bankruptcies dropped the whole business into turmoil. Boeing (BA) when Airbus was rattling its cage.  If you bought Apple (AAPL) back when they had $5 Billion in cash reserves to fend off Microsoft (MSFT) and their stock traded for $6.00, you would be in value investor nirvanah with the $199.00 you're getting today.

To call momentum investors idiots would be wrong. They're not. Most of them are quite bright. I tend to think of them more as social conformists and adrenaline junkies. They live for the good news or bad, and trade on the moment, bobbing up and down in the financial waves and eating their little bits of fish.

Value investors are Shamu, baby. Sleek, smart, and patient. I'd rather open my mouth and scoop up a whole lemming feast than keep bobbing on the waves and pulling out my little bits of prosperity while patting myself on the back for reading the wavelets. I know the tide, and where it goes. That is what makes me richer, and leaves me with more hair than Jim Cramer.