It's hard to believe, but stocks are within spitting distance of new all-time highs. At time of writing, the S&P 500 is just 1% away from being positive on the year and 6% away from literally the highest point in the index's history. Many discounts in prospective retirement stocks have evaporated completely.

Yet the real economy still is in rough shape. Advance estimates showed first-quarter GDP slowing by 4.8%, and early estimates by the Atlanta Fed show Q2 GDP falling by an almost inconceivable 53.8%. These numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, as production will naturally bounce back as America comes out of lockdown. But it's going to be a while before things start to look normal again.

High prices at a time when the economy is in freefall might seem odd. It actually gets worse when you look at stock valuations. We won't even bother with the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio or the forward P/E. With earnings per share so distorted by COVID-19 disruptions, any metric that uses an estimation of corporate profits for the next year will be all but useless, making stocks priced against nonexistent earnings look artificially expensive.

But even the cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio (CAPE), based on average inflation-adjusted earnings over the past decade, tells a rather sobering story. At today's CAPE of 30, the S&P 500 is 78% higher than its long-term average and priced to lose about 1.5% annually over the next eight years, according to research site GuruFocus.

Yet as the old saying goes, the stock market is a market of stocks. While the major market averages are priced to disappoint, some bargains remain. And with the Federal Reserve continuing to pump liquidity into the system for the foreseeable future, the general direction will likely be higher.

Today, we're going to look at 15 retirement stocks to buy at still-reasonable prices, even in the post-COVID-19 market. Not all are once-in-a-lifetime buys, but investors can rest assured that they're buying good companies at decent prices - exactly the way you want to build a retirement portfolio.

Public Storage

Getty Images

We'll start with one of the most durable and pandemic-proof retirement stocks in the real estate sector: Public Storage (PSA, $206.37).

Public Storage is the world's largest owner and operator of self-storage facilities. The company, which is organized as a , serves more than 1