We’ll go next to Michael Lasser with Barclays Capital.

Michael Lasser - Barclays Capital

Good morning, thanks. If you start to see competitors become more aggressive from a promotional perspective in the upcoming year, what’s your sense for how you are going to respond, particularly because you will have some gross margin cushion from your enhanced inventory assortment efforts?

Francis Blake

So Michael, I mean, the -- one of the things that really lies behind the portfolio approach is that we try to articulate pretty clearly for ourselves what the role is of each category and where it’s critical to set the right price impression, where it may not be, where we have some opportunities. And so we’re trying to set the path to provide the most value for the customer and then the response is really going to be dictated by what’s our overall portfolio strategy.

Craig, do you want to elaborate on that?

Craig Menear

For about the last year-and-a-half, we’ve been really focused on trying to work hard to eliminate promotional activity in our business. You know, we’re not 100% there, obviously but that is the strategy to get back to providing great value for our customers every single day. And I think we’ve shared with you on past calls that promotional activity that we had out there in the past wasn’t really nutritive to the business and we are simply converting that type of spend into driving our portfolio strategy and really focusing on the project business. And so we’re conscious, obviously, of the market that we compete in. We have to be because that’s at the heart of driving value to our customers. But we’re going to really react based on our portfolio strategy approach.

Michael Lasser - Barclays Capital

Maybe I’ll ask it a little bit differently then. How much of the flat to slightly up gross margin guidance for the year is a result of the focus bay approach, and how much is inherent, you know? Are you assuming that the promotional environment in the upcoming year is going to become more intense? And then what is the risk that there’s a structural change in the home improvement sub-sector that gross margins are structurally lower because everyone else is just chasing traffic? Thanks.

Francis Blake

Well, again, Michael, the way we look at it is our job is to provide the compelling value to our customers and that’s what sets the strategy. So I -- it’s -- we don’t start with an assumption of hey, here’s how we see all the different potentials on the competitive environment. We start from the -- where do we know we have to go to provide great value to our customer and build from there.

Michael Lasser - Barclays Capital

Okay. Thank you for your comments.

Operator

We’ll go next to Gregory Melich with Morgan Stanley.

Gregory Melich - Morgan Stanley

Thanks. I have two questions, one on credit and then on CapEx. On credit, we know how much it helps the SG&A, Carol. Have you guys thought about how much it could impact the top line in terms of the percentage of your sales that would be on credit, or reduced credit lines for some of your private label card customers?

Carol B. Tome

Well, today we are approving 76% of all new applications and in 2008 we opened up $3.2 million accounts. Now, the approval line, if you will, is dropped by about 6% so the average line that’s been approved is $6,850. The through-the-door FICO scores are 705, so we still think that credit is going to be an important value proposition going forward. As a penetration of total sales, it was down slightly from last year at about 28%.