I "monitor" the profitabilities of other coins, especially the ones that currently at the top of the coinwars list. Most times the grain wins. My calculations are simple: average block reward multiplied by the current exchange rate and divided with current difficulty for the coin. For example, compare to litecoin even after its forthcoming diff adjustment to ~2463 that should come in few hours the Grain has 3 to 1 advantage using my method. All other candidates either have very high diff or are victims of hoppers and thus it is not as effective to mine them solo. So I mine the grain. And, yes, I do have a faith in grain