That's "Y2K" as in Year 2000, a reference to the so-called millennium bug -- the global computer glitch that's either been underestimated or over-hyped, depending on whether you believe it will bring the world to its collective knees or pass as a minor data hiccup.

And Stewart's just one in a clutch of Y2K investment gurus betting on the disaster scenario. "Entrepreneurs of apocalypse," you might call them -- and they're galloping to a bookstore near you faster than the four horsemen. Surprisingly, none of these guys has a late-night infomercial. They do, however, have the latter-day equivalent: Web sites promoting their books. You see, they all offer self-published tomes that promise to make you a king's mint off the Y2K disaster. In the true spirit of American enterprise, Stewart, along with other authors like David Steelsmith Elliott and Charles Steed, has discovered an upside to the "end of the world as we know it." Y2Ka-ching!

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Stewart, a securities analyst whose home, business and yacht are anchored in Dana Point, Calif., was the first to market, with his evocatively titled "Date Rape 2000: Investing in the Crime of the Century." Though the trade paperback will set you back $29.95, that's apparently a small price to pay for "capitalizing fully on the spectacular payday immediately ahead."

Elliott, an ex-Navy man in Tacoma, Wash., and Steed, a survival-minded real estate speculator who hails from farther north in rural Puget Sound, subsequently weighed in with their own takes on fiscal Armageddon. Elliott's book, "Everybody's Guide to Making a Million Dollars in the Year 2000 Computer Crash," assures readers that they can amass "$15,000 to 2 MILLION DOLLARS" off the coming crisis. Steed's entry, "Crash Course 2000: How to Prepare for and Prosper From the Y2K Computer Crash," combines predictions of inner-city rioting with "sure-fire real estate investment techniques" to make you rich when the bottom drops out of civilization.

To be sure, all three are hunkering down for the run-of-the-mill, Irwin Allen-style disasters that preoccupy most Y2K soothsayers: the power outages, the frozen elevators, the food shortages. But what sets these guys apart from other digital millennarians -- like the folks doing a fast business in canned victuals and butane stoves -- is their interest in the big picture. Forget about the expected traumas of Jan. 1 or 2; these guys are looking ahead to an ample calendar year's worth of business upheavals -- and the profits they plan to make off them.

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