Here’s a quick little trade idea for you: sell, short or buy puts on Metro Inc. (TSE: MRU.A). Metro Inc. is the operator of A&P, Food Basics, Metro and Loeb grocery stores in Ontario and Quebec. It’s not that I think being in the consumer staples sector is a bad thing in this environment, but this is a stock that has been a high flyer over the last year and I think it’s time for it to come back down to the market’s miserable reality.

Metro purchased the A&P/Dominion stores in Canada back in 2005 and have spent the last few years integrating them into their Metro brand. 2008 was the year they reaped the rewards, and the stock price soared. In 2008, while the rest of the market was plummeting, MRU.A advanced over 90% making it one of the best performing stocks of the year.

I hate sounding like the perma-bear, but we have another company on the “bankruptcy watch” list: Nova Chemicals (TSE: NCX), Canada’s “premiere” chemical manufacturer… actually, they’re pretty much Canada’s only chemical manufacturer. In the eyes of the equity markets, bond markets, and credit markets (i.e., CDS market) this company may be insolvent within months. But that fate is far from certain. For the gamblers out there, there may be a long-shot trade to be made.

As an introduction, Nova Chemicals (TSE: NCX) is Canada’s major chemicals producer. Basically, they produce a variety of plastic resins and styrenics that go into the manufacturing of stuff like plastic bags, plastic containers, disposable cups, and vehicle dashboards.

Its been a while since my last dividend stock analysis, so I thought I'd start with what should be a heavy hitter, Royal Bank Of Canada (TSE: RY). I have replaced the Dividend Achievers slot, with the DividendInvenstors.ca star rating, due to the dividend achievers list no longer being viewable online. (If you know of a new address for it, please let us know in the comment section! As we all know, all the banks have been hit hard in recent months. Lets see how their overall scores turn out now that things have calmed down a bit.

About the company:

Here is Royal Bank of Canada's description of what they do, which can be found on their website here

Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) posted fourth-quarter earnings, and boy were they negative. Earnings came in at $1.08 per share compared with expectations of $1.31 per share. CAT also said it will be cutting 20,000 jobs (~11% of their workforce).

Sometimes equity investors have a habit of overlooking the bond/credit markets. But in times like these, when credit markets are tight, the states of corporate balance sheets become more important than ever and it becomes imperative for all equity investors to watch and understand the credit markets.

Take Suncor Energy (TSE: SU) for example. SU was Canada’s favourite oil and gas stock from 2004 – 2007. It is one of Canada’s largest oil and gas stock (by market cap), it produces almost 300,000 Boe/d, earns over $2 billion per year, and has probably the most ambitious plans for the Albert Oil Sands – plans that were originally estimated to cost ~$6 billion.

A new year is upon us, and with it a new President and many, many new questions for the average investor to ask him or herself or their local MP or Congressman. There are many people out there, politicians not the least of them, that point to the present financial crisis and recession and cry “see THIS is proof that capitalism is the wrong way to go.” I say that's a silly thing to use as evidence.

On July 3, I posted the article “HOD ETFs – A Bearish Indicator For Oil?” suggesting that the exponential increase in trading volume that we were seeing in the new Horizon Beta Pro HOD ETF (the one that offers 200% downside exposure to the daily change in crude oil prices) could be evidence that a substantial correction was coming. July 3rd was when oil hit its all-time high of $145. Since then, spot oil prices have declined by roughly 70% and HOD volume has dropped substantially (see chart below).