Hey, good news in all the credit troubles out there: The credit derivatives business boomed in 2007. According to ISDA figures released tonight, the notional value of credit default swaps was $62.2-trillion at the end of last year, up smartly from $34.-trillion at the end of 2006.

So what? Well, that works out to a 10x increase in a mere four years. To put it in terms more familiar to shell-shocked credit market participants, Holy shit!

A bunch of travel over next few days, so posting will likely be light here. Try to be nice.

The current collapse in shoe company Crocs's stock has been nasty. It  is off 73% this year, and 48% in the last week alone.

So, was it predictable? In the broadest sense, of course it was. All such consumer fads eventually go pffft, and there was little reason to expect shoe company Crocs would be different. The trouble comes in timing such things: Put your short position on too early and you'll get blown out of the position, too late and you miss all the returns, or even get hit by a bounce.

One amusing way of thinking about timing a fad stock like Crocs is to watch Google Trends. When did the consumer fascination with the stock crest and begin declining? Here is the answer (with a stretched scale to give rough visual comparison):

The upshot: In theory you might have timed things fairly nicely on a Crocs short by following Google Trends data for this faddish consumer product. Of course, that assumes Google released the Trends data on a timely basis, that there wasn't a huge upsurge in interest in crocodiles, etc., but it's still intriguing.

Can anyone think of any other fads -- ideally stock-related -- to which to apply this? Consumer fads are particularly well suited.

Speaking of Google Trends data, this graph is interesting: It shows the diverging fortunes of Microsoft and Yahoo from a Google search point of view. Regular people -- who make up an ever-increasing percentage of Google users -- aren't very interested in the company that Bill built.

Emptying my burgeoning browser tabs:

• Aging process quickly hits homes in Las Vegas  (Los Angeles Times)
• Brazilian oil mega-find less "mega" then previously declared  (Bloomberg.com)
• Cleantech hits a first-quarter air pocket (Euromoney)

Lots of people crowing tonight about tech companies beating the street: CRM, INTC, and IBM in particular. So, what we are to glean? Has tech turned?

I like tech, or at least parts of tech, but I have trouble with an undiscerning tech sector call. Here's why:

• IBM: Good numbers tonight with a slight beat on earnings, but IBM isn't really a tech stock. It's a service stock, and an outsourcing story as much as anything. Further, it's insulated from early stages of any downturn via long-term contracts.
• INTC: Yes, the company met numbers, but it met reduced numbers on reduced guidance. In other words, things didn't decelerate faster than it thought they would, but that's not necessarily saying much.
• CRM: A solid story, and a tech story, but not a strong tell for the rest of enterprise tech. CRM is a SaaS company, with long-term contracts, considerably insulation from short-term vagaries in the market, and it's good cost-reduction story. Don't get me wrong, I like it, but I wouldn't read overmuch into it either.
• EBAY: I haven't had a lot of time to look at this one tonight, but it looks like a slight beat on revenues and earnings. If anyone had a closer look -- the stock is up 1% afterhours -- fill in the blanks below. Generally speaking, I increasingly think of EBAY as a kind of global pawnshop, which makes it somewhat countercyclical.
• GOOG: Let's see how GOOG does later this week. I still think it doesn't do as badly as people expect, but let's see.

Other views? Do INTC, IBM, etc. matter more than I think they do?

Every time I turn around someone is announcing they'll grow more gain, and have fewer beef capital. The latest example comes here from Canada, but you can find this sort of story anywhere right now given soaring wheat prices.The trouble is, of course, that less beef means higher meat prices, which trades off one commodity cost against another while growing cities and feeding people.

In a sense we are engaged in a global game of Hammurabi, the classic computer game where you planted acres in support of a growing population, hoping to keep it all in balance, and keep the rats at bay. As most people will remember, Hammurabi is a simple but irritatingly tough game -- because just when you think things are working out a plague strikes and takes out half your city.

Emptying my burgeoning browser tabs (again):

• Startups shine at Vegas broadcaster show (TheStreet.com)
• Hedge fund industry assets rose 27% to $2.6 trillion in 2007  (MarketWatch)
• Yet another book reviewed on the credit crunch (Economist.com)
• Investment Bank Regulation Is Changed Forever (Prince of Wall Street)

You think you had no fun doing taxes this year? I captured this screenshot from live Help in Turbotax while doing taxes earlier this week: