My latest column is up at RealMoney.

I think Rent-A-Center (RCII) can benefit from the slowdown in consumer spending and the tightening of credit standards.

If Rent-A-Center were to receive the same price-to-book multiple as Aaron Rents, it could trade above $28 per share today. While I don’t believe that will happen overnight, over the next five years Rent-A-Center could see high-single-digit earnings per share growth and also expand its price-to-book multiple to the 1.9 level. The combination of earnings growth and valuation expansion could generate annual returns averaging 15% or more.

Here’s how the company scores on the Stock Market Beat models:

Earnings momentum: Positive Earnings quality: Positive Price momentum: Neutral Free cash flow: Positive Return potential: Positive

Disclosure: At time of publication, William Trent has no financial position in the companies mentioned in this article.

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If you overlay the natural gas stocks over the coal stocks, it's the identical pattern since last Thursday, only with about half the gains... still some very nice moves for 3 days of work. Since my natural gas stake (3 positions, about 6%) is smaller than coal I am not taking any profits here, but once again just remember this the next time the 'early cycle', 'it will all be fine' folks start clucking. Let's compare Fannie Mae (FNM) to Cimarex Energy (XEC) Now, in the most recent period people were so fearful of financials that any news saying they won't be bankrupt was CHEERED - huge writeoffs? Better than expected! Take the stock up!... equity dilution? At least it's not out of business! Take the stock up! - but at some point the longer this goes (and it won't reverse in a quarter or two like many would have you ...