But on a serious note - just as we have far too much retail space, we have far too many restaurants - many need to close and more strip malls and stand alone buildings will empty in 2009.

Thursday: Chevron (CVX) - see comments above - Baltic Dry Index or oil up, 150 commodity stocks from oil to copper to fertilizer to wheat to steel to dry bulk shipping go up. Don't hate the HAL9000, hate the game.

Apollo Group (APOL) - this is a bona fide thesis stock; as hordes of unemployed Americans hit the streets they will be going back to University of Phoenix for schooling. Even if they are struggling to survive and don't have funds... but that's ok. It's thesis. At 22x forward earnings its rich for a 10-15% growth rate. One of the strongest charts of back half 2008 - thesis baby. I'd actually be very scared to be a long in a stock like this because one of these quarters it is set up to disappoint in a big way - maybe not this one, but once thesis turns to reality - you get a big swoon. I don't like to gamble on earnings since they are 50/50 propositions but sometime in 2009 I think this one gets the hammer. That said, I wish I had bought it last summer - I missed the thesis.

Pricesmart (PSMT) - this is an interesting little company based in San Diego: effectively a mini Costco of Central America and growing like gangbusters. Since every emerging market stock was hammered so has this one but the company earned about $1.30 in 2008, grew revenue by mid 20%s year over year and has a trailing PE of 16. As with almost all emerging market stocks (which again HAL9000 seems to trade all in 1 basket with no differentiation) it has made a major rebound and now stands at the cusp of resistance...

Friday: KB Homes (KBH) - more terrible news; more begging of nanny state to save the housing market. Yawn.