Lewis Carroll's classic novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, depicts a topsy-turvy world where logic is the twisted handmaiden of reality. Sometimes I think the stock market is such a world. I mean, where else could 99 cents equal nearly $13?

Of course, I'm referring to the share price of 99 Cents Only Stores (NYSE: NDN). In Wednesday's trade, the shares surged 17.5% to close at $12.61 -- effectively turning 99 cents into nearly $13. Okay, so it's not a literal transformation, but you get the point.

So, why did NDN gap up so much yesterday?

A recent Time magazine cover story described it as, "The New Frugality." The "it" here is the change in behavior, attitudes and even values Americans are embracing as a byproduct of the "Great Recession." It's just a fact that most of us have in some way or another altered our spending habits to a more frugal lifestyle as a direct result of the worst economic downturn since the 1930s.

One company feeling the sting of the country's new frugality is high-end retailer Williams-Sonoma (NYSE: WSM). Today the company reported a Q1 loss of $18.7 million, or 18 cents a share, compared with a profit of $10.4 million, or 10 cents a share, a year earlier. A performance not uncommon for retail stocks these days.

The losses were actually smaller than the company had projected, but those previous projections included a slashed advertising budget, a cut in capital spending and lowered merchandise inventories. More importantly, the company said that revenue in the quarter ended May 3 fell 22% to $611.6 million. Yikes!

Of course, Wall Street rewarded the anemic results with a near-10% drop in Wednesday's trade. So, what does the Williams-Sonoma miss tell us?