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.

The volatility is at a record high, and for active traders, that can either be very good or very bad. Of course, for active traders, direction of the markets doesn't matter all that much because you can short stocks, currencies, ETFs, and also exercise calls and puts on options and so on. (actually the calls and puts part is a whole other can of worms altogether because they can be in the money one day, and out the next, thanks to the huge swings) Anyway, what makes the present market situation either very good or very bad what makes volatility such a double-edged sword – it'll make some systems brilliant and others useless. Sometimes technicals and their parameters seem to be the crystal ball everyone wants, and others that worked last week got shaken to bits. (lingo: shaken in and out of positions because of false or too-late signals) And there's no way of knowing ahead of time what parameters will suit the market conditions ahead of time, or what types of technical studies. There, as they say, lies the rub.

I received an email from one of our readers the other day regarding Aecon Group Ltd. (TSE: ARE). This reader had some insightful thoughts, which I got permission to share with you, along with this, I thought that I would do some more research on this company and provide you with a Stock Analysis on it. Here is what our reader Mike M. had to say about Aecon.

Last week we took a glance at the big 5 Canadian banks and their current divined yields, so I figured that I would continue on this and take a look at our top 4 financial services / insurance companies. Yesterday we had a little bit of a rally in the Canadian markets, due to some strength in resource stocks, but unfortunately the bear decided to prove its strength and took hold of todays momentum once again. Just like last week I thought I'd take two metrics into consideration for todays chart. The first and most important one, is the Dividend Yield and the second is the Payout Ratio which I feel is a good indication if future dividend increases are feasible.

“Bottoms are a lot better to watch than try to catch.” - I believe that was the lovely Becky Quick of CNBC that said that. I might have the exact wording wrong and welcome a correction. Anyway, a stock market bottom seems to be all anyone really wants to talk about. Today's lesson: picking a market turnaround on a candlestick chart.

Well, the markets are going crazy right now, and personally I don't think this volatility is going to end in the near future. There are a lot of stocks that are selling at a deep discount right now. And some of these stocks are the big banks here in Canada. Even though the price of crude oil hit $75 today, and the Canadian dollar has done a swan dive, the Banks here in Canada haven't taken as big a hit as I expected. This could be because a recent report said that Canada's banks are the most 'sound' in the world. In any case, I figured it might be a good time to take a quick glance at the big 5 Canadian banks and see what their current dividend yields are sitting at. I thought I'd take two metrics into consideration in todays chart.

Okay, I've been silent for awhile, awaiting the markets to get back to business as usual since the Lehman failure and AIG getting booted off the Dow because it was ABOUT to fail. I'm actually unsure, but I don't think any Dow component has ever failed before, and when one is on the brink, that definitely is ominous. It has proved so since.