I prefer the long run...say 6-9 months

I am not a day trader, but this market is so volatile that I find myself hitting my price targets or stop losses (lately it's been the latter) VERY quickly. Furthermore, given how precarious the global financial markets (ie hedge fund's blowing up) I don't want to overstay my welcome in certain stocks (even if the stocks that I like have 3-5 years of auspicious earnings visibility ahead of them).

With that said there are some "trends" that even this impatient & bi-polar market acknowledges and one of them is the impending solar surplus that should hit in 2009.

Solar stocks were pummeled on Monday as investors fretted that an oversupply of solar panels next year will drive down prices and profit margins in the high-flying sector.

Bear case number one for the solar surplus is pretty mild:

Solar companies, Hoopes and other analysts said, have said price declines will be in the 5 to 10 percent range next year and that demand will remain healthy despite a pullback in government solar subsidies in Spain, one of the biggest solar markets.

However, some of the biggest solar companies aren't sounding as sunny (couldn't help myself) in their assesments, which brings us to bear case number two:

U.S. solar company SunPower told Reuters at an industry conference last week that it could see a price decline of 10 to 20 percent next year -- adding fuel to the share declines of the last few days

The biggest x-factor in all this is whether the U.S. (currently 10% of global demand - a pathetic number indeed) and other governments step up to absorb the surplus and invest in their future energy infrastructure.

"We still don't believe the bull thesis," Oppenheimer analyst Sam Dubinsky wrote in a client note on Monday, adding that it was too soon to tell whether markets including the United States, France, Italy and Greece would absorb the solar panels that won't be sold to Spain.