Does anyone here remember Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ: CROX)?

It seems like only yesterday that you'd walk down the street and everywhere you looked, you saw those horribly ugly $30 sandals that were going to change the world.

Well, as it turned out, Crocs didn't change the world. They were just a fad. Crocs are nothing more than this decade's version of the hula hoop, the pet rock, Members Only jackets or the dearly beloved eight-track tape.

The Washington Post recently looked at the decline and fall of Crocs.

The colorful foam clogs appeared in 2002, just as the country was recovering from a recession. Brash and bright, they were a cheap investment (about $30) that felt good and promised to last forever. Former president George W. Bush wore them. Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler wore them. Your grandma wore them. They roared along with the economy, mocked by the fashion world but selling 100 million pairs in seven years.

In the space of about 16 months, shares of CROX jumped 600%! The stock did even better than Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) -- and no one had to bail them out. Now class, that brings me to today's investing lesson: How to know when you've made the dumbest investing mistake in the world.

Discount retailer Big Lots Inc. (NYSE: BIG) saw its shares surge higher in Wednesday trading after it posted a fourth-quarter profit from continuing operations that came in ahead of analysts expectations and offered a better-than-expected outlook.

Clearly, investors view BIG as a recession stock to own.

Earnings from continuing operations totaled a dollar per share, ahead of the 93 cents per share analysts were expecting, and 3 cents higher than the year-ago quarter. Revenue fell to $1.37 billion from $1.41 billion last year, but beat expectations of $1.36 billion. Same-store sales fell a mild 3.2%, as sales of discretionary items, such as furniture and toys, were challenging.

There was a time when Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) was the cream of the crop in the PC business. Its college dorm beginnings and customization model allowed the company to separate itself from a host of other competitors.

It is hard to say what exact magic it was that allowed the DELL story to unfold, but suffice it to say the company was the best in the business at selling computers to individuals and small businesses. But I'm not so sure that is the case any longer. The heady days of the dot-com boom were when this company reached its prime. It has been a slow death ever since.

Is it realistic to expect Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) to deliver double-digit earnings growth in this environment?

Seriously, can retail customers afford premium coffee when budgets are severely strained and debts are high?

No way. Premium coffee is a luxury item, and though many are addicted to java, cutting back is relatively easy to do. In that dynamic, sales are likely to slow.

After reaching a historic high in the mid-$30s in June 2007, CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS) has seen its fortunes fall in a continuous slide. It's now trading for less than $5 per share.

After reporting reduced revenues for the fourth quarter of 2008, CBS is taking significant steps to conserve capital and strengthen its balance sheet.

The company reported a drop in revenue of 6%, which would have been even greater but for the contribution of recent acquisitions.

Television and radio ad sales were weak, and the Outdoor advertising unit had a 15% drop in revenue. While Outdoor was negatively impacted by foreign exchange rate changes as the U.S. dollar strengthened, excluding currency, revenues for this unit were still down a disappointing 8%.

Shares of Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) were last seen headed south after the world's largest technology company reported fiscal first-quarter results and cut its full-year 2009 guidance.

HP said it earned 93 cents per share, excluding one-time costs, on revenue of $28.8 billion for the quarter.

While the bottom-line number matched analyst estimates, the top-line figure fell well short of expectations by more than $3 billion.

Part of the revenue shortfall was a result of currency fluctuations, but the pullback in technology spending was broad-based, as all but one of the company's major business lines posted a decrease in revenue.

Former high-flyer Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) put a coffee shop on every street corner during the time of easy credit. The pure saturation strategy had no basis in demand.

Instead, the company rode the wave of Wall Street, believing in its own omnipotence. Books were written about the supposed greatness of company founder Howard Schultz.

It was enough to make anyone sick. Of course, no one cared when it was all working.

Now that it's apparent the strategy was completely off base, the question is, will the company survive? The answer is not obvious.

A consequence of a weakening airline sector is the pain it will cause plane-maker Boeing (NYSE: BA). With capacity tightening, the need for aircrafts is diminishing.

Imagine planes just sitting idle in the desert. That vision is becoming a reality.

Fortunately for investors, that vision will take time to play out. In the meantime, Boeing gets a free pass as they work through years of order backlog that built up during the last business cycle.

If you take a look at Boeing during the last few months, it is clear that investors have yet to catch on to a world of lower revenues going forward.

It is very easy to make money in this market despite the headlines. Using options to capitalize on volatility combined with a long/short strategy can result in powerful returns.

For example, taking equal positions of my Top 10 Stocks for 2009 while at the same time selling equal amounts of my Top 10 Stocks to Avoid would generate a return of more than 10% year to date.

Given that trends once in place stay in place for some time, I am quite confident that these positions will be winners throughout the year. It is not too late to set up your trades using these suggestions as a guide.

As the reigning king of the fast food industry, McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD) has consistently demonstrated its adroitness in addressing changing economic conditions and consumer preferences.

The company's fourth-quarter earnings report provided a stark testimonial to the effectiveness of McDonald's strategy and management. Reporting earnings of 87 cents per share for the quarter, MCD exceeded the 2007 fourth-quarter results after adjusting for a 2007 tax bonus to earnings of 33 cents per share.

The company reported a 3% drop in revenues for the quarter. Excluding currency exchange rates, the global company reported an increase in revenues of 5% for the period.

One of the biggest complaints of the public equity markets is the incredibly short-term focus of participants. Management teams for publicly traded entities face severe consequences from a market short on patience.

Decisions tend to be focused on delivering short-term results. The "beat the number" game has become standard operating procedure. Such is the cost of accessing capital while providing shareholders liquidity.

But is worth it? I'm not so sure.

Investors want the company to make as much money as possible in the short term. As a result, if a company is not profitable in a given quarter, there is extreme pressure to cut costs and to do so immediately -- no matter the longer-term expense of such action.

In many cases cutting costs are exactly the right tonic to rejuvenate profits, but in some instances, those short-term cuts can do more damage than good.

This past week, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) dropped a big bomb on the market by releasing its quarterly earnings earlier than expected. Lost in the headline of the lower revenue and earnings number was the announcement that the company would be cutting 5,000 jobs from its rolls.

For the first time in its history, MSFT is laying off employees. My question is, why bother?

Dendreon (NASDAQ: DNDN) is a classic example of how a company fares as they struggle through the arcane and sometimes bewildering process of gaining FDA approval of a new treatment protocol.

A little more than a year and a half ago, the Seattle-based company was anxiously awaiting FDA approval of its new drug treatment protocol for prostate cancer.

The company's new drug, Provenge, had completed a trial that found that the treatment extended the lives of men suffering from prostate cancer an average of 4.5 months over those who did not receive the treatment. The company felt it had adequately demonstrated the efficacy of the treatment and deserved FDA approval.

In an unexpected but somewhat typical move, the FDA chose not to approve the drug for distribution at that time. It opted to delay approval until completion of another study under way with 500 subjects. This came in spite of a finding by an FDA panel that the drug was "safe and substantially effective."

Piper Jaffray Companies (NYSE: PJC), a Minneapolis-based investment banking firm, serves the capital needs of a wide array of corporate and governmental entities.

With operations in corporate finance, municipal finance, institutional equity, bond sales, trading and private placements, Piper serves clients throughout the United States and Europe. Recently, the company made a major investment in China, viewing that country as having high levels of capital needs, as well as a growing institutional investor base.

Piper Jaffray has its roots in the commercial paper business, tracing its history back to the 1880s. For much of its 20th century existence, Piper operated as a regional retail distribution securities company.

Following a stressful period as a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB), the remaining principals of the former Piper Jaffray unwound the merger and emerged as an independent securities firm without a retail distribution arm.

Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions (NASDAQ: MDRX) is the result of the recently completed merger of Florida-based Allscripts and the health care information technology business of London-based Misys.

The nearly ill-fated merger finally closed late in 2008, after having to be restructured following the untimely demise of Lehman Brothers, the architect of the original merger plans.

The merger with Misys places the company in the forefront of the Obama administration's emphasis on improving health care in part by improving the availability of medical information in electronic form.

Allscripts' solutions are the cutting edge of medical information systems, and the company should benefit substantially from a move in the direction suggested by Obama.

MDRX provides clinical software, connectivity and information solutions to its health care customer base throughout the United States. The company delivers its products through four divisions: Professional Solutions, Enterprise Solutions, Health Systems Group and Medication Services.

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas was last week. In past years, just the anticipation of the world's largest electronics trade show was enough move technology stocks higher.

That was not the case this year, though, as investors grapple with a weak economy, frozen credit, plunging home values and rising unemployment. Just paying the bills and keeping one's head above water seems to be the order of the day. The market sold off hard last week, and not even the CES could pull it out of its funk. Still, there were some bright spots.

Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) gave its investors a taste of the old days as its shares soared 34% after its new touch-screen phone and mobile operating system garnered admiration from analysts and attendees at the CES.