“Many people would tend to agree - Monster’s already down about 30% since the beginning of 2008.

Some may call that oversold, I call it “the tip of the iceberg.”

If we were simply talking about an equities market “correction,” then I’d say we’ll be coming out of the downturn by the 3rd quarter. But we’re talking about a crisis in the credit markets here - we haven’t had to deal with this since the ’70s and when you stack inflation on top of it we’re looking at a “perfect storm” scenario.

So this isn’t even a matter of performing deep financial analysis or picking apart the chart to identify a pattern. Let’s use some common sense (an underused asset in many investors’ toolboxes) here and see if we can figure out what’s going to happen to Monster…I think asking ourselves a few questions will be a good way to proceed:

Do you think companies are going to be hiring aggressively or laying people off?
Do you think they’re going to want to pay to list their jobs or will they simply use word of mouth to attract the relatively small number of employees they might hire?
Is it a good sign or a bad sign when 3 - 4 top executives leave the company over the last 3 months?
I feel like I’m watching a rerun of 2001 here and Monster’s on its way to $10 per share!

Now, I’ve never been one to go short a stock…it’s just not something I’m comfortable doing.

But you should definitely have a look at your portfolio, because if you have “a Monster” lurking in there, it’d be a smart move to get rid of it and get rid of it quick!”