I wrote about Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) back on June 16, when the stock was trading at a little over $22. The company came to my notice because of Efudex, its treatment for actinic keratosis and basal cell carcinoma. Not only does the treatment work to remedy an almost epidemic growth in skin cancer among baby boomers -- it turns out that the treatment also improves the appearance of the skin. After undergoing surgical treatment myself for basal cell carcinoma, I can safely say that patients who have a choice will opt for the cream over surgery. The improvement in appearance is a bonus.

Since then, the stock has run up to $29, and after its earnings report this morning, it was up another 12% at $33 in pre-market trading, making a gain of 50% in four and a half months.

The sudden appearance of a new strain of influenza has become a dramatic lesson in stock market dynamics. If we apply the chaos theory to the market, a cough in Mexico can cause an economic storm in Asia.

Markets in Asia and Europe dropped sharply on speculation that the outbreak of swine flu will curtail travel and consumer spending. Shares of airlines and hotels were particularly hard hit, which is not surprising. The price of corn and soybeans dropped as well on speculation that an outbreak of swine flu may reduce demand for pork, and consequently the grains that feed them.

One of the things I love about the stock market is the window it opens onto the reality of who we are, without illusion, telling us in numbers what we want and what we fear. I think the downturn has required investors to look deep into our own lives and desires to see what’s really essential in the material world when we have to make hard choices. Is it soup, is it shoes, is it oil, is it wine and roses?

I’ve been watching trends among anxious consumers as jobs disappear and retirement vanishes into the distance. And while Americans may be cutting back on certain dispensable luxuries, like Starbucks (SBUX) lattes or auction-house Picassos, there are other items that appear to be necessities during uncertain times. The need for some of these cheaper indulgences actually appears to be hard-wired in the brain, which would certainly make these desires appear to be recession-proof, or even recession-boosted.

Apparently we've been in a recession for a year now, and the layoffs are beginning to ripple out from malls and car dealerships to factories. Folks are cutting back, and stores are closing down. A local radio DJ spent a morning playing songs evoking the Great Depression, topped by Tom Waits grinding out "Buddy Can You Spare a Dime" with grim conviction. I inherited a Depression-ready mentality from my parents, and I've already had visions of bread lines and soup kitchens dancing in my head, rather than sugarplums.

Giving in to my pessimism and to dire predictions of more and worse to come, I've come up with a basket of stocks that I think would be most likely to survive a long downturn. I call it my Poorhouse Portfolio. I've included some typical bear-market sector stocks and added others that I think could be new additions to hard-times stocks.

I was watching the Olympic trials for the U.S. swimming team last Sunday on my new HD TV. And maybe it was because I hadn't gotten such a clear, up-close glimpse before of top swimmers competing in all their glistening glory. But I was struck by the similarity of most of the competitors to space-age dolphins, as they poised by the pool in their Speedo LZR Racer bodysuits. I found myself coveting one of the suits, even though I might be thinking about a different aquatic mammal if I tried to squeeze myself into one and found myself faced with a merciless mirror.

My husband mentioned that several athletes had set new records in their LZR Racers, and that some even attributed an edge to wearing the streamlined, body-compressing suits designed with help from NASA, the space people. I perked up because Speedo is licensed by Warnaco Group (WRC), a company whose stock I've owned before, to my benefit (I don't own it now), and which has survived the slowdown in consumer spending better than many apparel companies (its popular "intimate" apparel brands, Olga and Warner, appear to be recession-proof). But the current stock price is well below analysts' price targets. My interest got even keener as we watched Michael Phelps set yet another world record in his spiffy LZR Racer (the waist-to-calf version). I love the fact that Warnaco started out in the 19th century making corsets, and Speedo began in Australia making woolen longjohn-style swimwear in 1928. Progress!

The Baltic Dry Index, which measures changes in the cost to transport raw materials by sea, can be used to predict fluctuations in supply and demand for commodities as well as the prices of shipping company stocks. The index was cut in half from a peak in October to a January low, and it has been steadily rising back to its peak level. Not coincidentally, the demand for cargo containers has been going up as well, and there are shortages of the containers reported everywhere in the world, including the U.S.

A recent story in the Los Angeles Times reported on the problems caused by the container shortage at U.S. ports. Companies and agricultural producers with American goods bound for overseas can’t find enough cargo containers and have to wait weeks to get space on ships headed to Asia.

You know something’s afoot (or in this case, ready to rev) when a Texas oil tycoon like T. Boone Pickens calls one of his companies Clean Energy (CLNE). That is, when he’s not trying to corner the market on water or harness the strong winds in the Texas panhandle.

Pickens has become a true believer in natural gas as a fuel for transport. He controls a majority of shares of Clean Energy, which provides CNG (compressed natural gas) and LNG (liquefied natural gas) for use in refuse, transit, ports, shuttle, taxi, trucking, airport and municipal fleet markets. He even has a fuel terminal named after him.