' By James T.Yenckel The stock market has a good friend In Burton MalkieL At a time when investors are looking for almost any place else to put their inflation-eroded dollars, he thinks common stocks are the wisest buy.</br></br>There?Ûªs even a place in the market, he says, for the first-timer with as little as $500 to $1,000 to invest.</br></br>The stock market is MaUdel?Ûªs hobby. By profession, he?Ûªs chairman of Princeton University?Ûªs economics department, from where he also keeps an eye on Wall Street. He also served on President Ford?Ûªs Council of Economic Advisers.</br></br>?ÛÏI?Ûªm kind of a gambler at heart,?Û? says Malkiel, 47, ?ÛÏsomeone who likes to play 21?ÛÓor the game of trying to pick stocks to keep ahead of the crowd.?Û?</br></br>Not only are stocks relatively ?ÛÏcheap?Û? today, he argues in a new book, ?ÛÏThe Inflation-Beater?Ûªs Investment Guide (Norton, 190 pages, $8.95), ?ÛÏI really do believe?ÛÓin a fundamental sense?ÛÓin stocks as a hedge against inflation.?Û?