Technology stocks were boosted by bellwether Qualcomm, announcing a $3 billion stock buyback plan as well as a dividend raise of 12%.

Merger Monday continued into Tie-Up Tuesday as CF Industries raised its hostile bid for Terra Industries (the target having agreed to terms with Yara) and Dow Chemical has agreed to sell its Styron plastics unit to Bain Capital in a deal valued at $1.6 billion.

After hours, the activity did not stop as Elliott Associates offered to acquire Novell in a deal with an implied value of $1 billion shortly after market close.  As a result, Novell’s stock shot up 29% in the after-market.

In commodities, gold and crude oil prices rose, and the dollar fell.  Investors appear to be waiting for economic data results before making a move.

Spearheaded by VC stalwarts Andreessen Horowitz, First Round Capital, Charles River Ventures, and True Ventures, the idea is that being that it now costs less to build a tech product, first round funding is usually more prohibitive with legal fees going up but funding rounds not being as high (going from $5 mm to $20 mm for first rounds to as little as $500K to $1 mm to generate).  According to Mark Andreessen, these documents are necessary for several reasons, as he explains below:

“What hasn’t changed is the process by which funding rounds get done. So what’s been happening is entrepreneurs have been finding that if they raise money from angels, that’s fine, but VCs will often try to use their full standard processes, even for small rounds. That can mean a lot of legal negotiations and legal fees, because [standard term sheets] are really complicated. Historically, that’s worked to VCs’ advantage, but it’s not good for entrepreneurs.”

First round funding can still be negotiated even using this documentation, however removal of the “middle man” (meaning: lawyers who are generally the few who profit from these negotiations) can be beneficial for the next Sergey Brin or Biz Stone who is looking to start their next big venture.

The Nasdaq 100 turned in the best performance for the month of February among the three major indexes, gaining 4.47% to the second place S&P 500’s 2.86%.  Everyone must have read the summary numbers for February over the weekend and then came in as buyers today as the Nasdaq 100 continued on its winning streak up 1.52% (+27.72, 1,846.40).  The S&P 500 closed up a solid 1.01% (+11.22, 1,115.71) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.76% (+78.53, 10,403.79) on the day.

Merger Monday was in full gear as four deals were announced last night and this morning and TrackedInsights Taryn Cooper covered them all earlier today.  Rumors of the biggest deal on the planet, Germany bailing Greece out with loans, prompted the Greek 10-year bond to drop 9 basis points (6.34% to 6.25%, +0.64) and stabilized equity markets around the world.  The Chilean IPSA Index fell 1.7% to 3,761 in reaction to the 8.8 magnitude earthquake Saturday morning, which was the fifth largest recorded since 1900.

When an earthquake hits Chile, what do you buy?  The answer is not peppers, it is copper.  Chile produces 35% of the world’s copper and if any of those mines collapsed this will slow the production and supply of the base metal, sending prices higher.  The iPath Dow Jones-UBS Copper ETN (NYSE: JJC) jumped 2.73% in the first five minutes of trading this morning but faded back, closing up 1.76% (+$0.79, $45.49).

Economists expected Personal Income and Consumer Spending to increase by 0.4% month-over-month, but we got income going up 0.1% and spending up 0.5%.  This means the consumer must have been taking on debt over the last month.  In general, the market likes it when the consumer spends more, even though signs point to them taking on more debt.  If the consumer is out there spending, that means the stocks they trade are doing more business.  Damn the torpedoes!  Who is paying their debts back these days anyways?  There is a problem here though, as Personal Income increased only 0.1% (0.4% expected) with the prior M-o-M increase being 0.4% and before that 0.5%.  The growth trend we have experienced over the past few months is slowing down as workers are receiving less income, which can be attributed to less people working.

The ISM manufacturing Index was reported at 10 a.m. and missed expectations (56.5 vs. 57.4, prior 58.4).  A reading over 50 indicates manufacturing is expanding but the number below that of last month shows it is expanding less quickly.  Construction Spending was also released at the same time and was down 9.3% Year-over-Year and down 0.6% Month-over-Month.  The MoM expectation was -0.8%, so the number was beat, but it is still declining.  While a decline in construction spending means less construction workers on the job, this is probably good in the long run as a contraction in housing supply (or a slower expansion), will mean a lower relative supply of homes in the future and a firming of home prices.

Gold had an uneventful day, gaining marginally, as all the metals action seemed to be in copper today.  The fact that gold did not drop is a story on its own as the dollar traded its highest level since last July, before fading back to gain just 0.38%.  Even the news of Germany buying Greek debt did not hold the euro up as the pound dropped sharply against the dollar with the summer election for Prime Minister in the U.K. is too close to call.  The U.K. has deficit problems of their own, and it seems once you throw in the weak economies of Spain, Portugal and Ireland, the chances of another bailout being needed seems almost certain.  Italy’s budget is always an adventure and it is starting to look like the only decent economy left in Europe is Germany.

Nymex crude dropped 78 cents as the $80 a barrel level is proving to be a difficult fence to jump.  The barrel was trading at $78.88 (-0.98%) at 4:48 p.m.

Microsoft has been incredibly vocal with its accusatory stance against Google, suggesting their business is anti-competitive.  Microsoft is no stranger with being accused of monopolistic practices, back in the late-90s going through that themselves.

The thing that stands out to me is whether Microsoft should care or not.  Let’s be fair, these two companies are like Goliath vs. Goliath.  While there is healthy competition in the technology space, each is successful and has their niche in their own right.   While they have similar products, typically Microsoft and Google target different populations but are potentially each other’s biggest competition.

I can’t say whether Microsoft is simply picking on Google because they can, but it seems interesting to me that several outlets today have picked up the idea that Microsoft is encouraging victims of Google to file complaints with regulators on their anti-competitive practices (an idea, that by the way, Microsoft is denying).

It appears as though Google is getting their licks in the media — you know, the whole saying of building something up just to tear it down, etc etc.   And with it’s trouble in China, along with its Google Books drama in the U.S., Microsoft’s deputy general counsel Dave Heiner also wrote in a blog post today that “Google’s way of working with advertisers and publishers makes it hard for Microsoft’s competing Bing search engine to win search volume.”

I wonder how long it will be before Google starts taking its public licks, much like Microsoft did in the late-1990s, for being the monolith it was but it’s still standing and of course, won’t be going away anytime soon.  The same could be said for Google, as it’s going through it’s growing pains of falling out of favor.  We’ve seen evidence of this recently with public fall-out from it’s Buzz launch, which had many more “ifs” involved in its release than answers.  To me though, I think that Google will walk away from this unscathed, as they have a team of lawyers working for them to ensure that whatever may happen quickly goes away.

Out of four high-ish profile announcements, AIG selling its Asian unit to Prudential plc, Merck KGaA buying life-science company Millipore, Astellas Pharma submitted an unsolicited bid for OSI Pharmaceuticals, and MSCI agreed to acquire proxy advisory firm RiskMetrics.  Those four deals along provided about $50 billion in transaction value to the league tables this morning.

The AIG deal was valued $35.5 billion.  I’m not certain what kind of sign this is for AIG — garbage in, garbage out?  Whatever the case, $35.5 billion is not something to shake a stick, whether or not this is perceived to  be a strong subsidiary that they could get some value from.

What interests me are the pharmaceutical and healthcare consolidations, usually signifying a “healthier” economy (not “healthy” just “healthier” by  most standards).   When you see consolidations in this industry, “they” will come (meaning: investors, driving up the markets!). In fact, as we speak, drug stocks are reported to be “stoked” by this merger activity.

An unsolicited bid, which is just a nice way of saying “hostile” (though technically, a hostile bid is when the target formally rejects the acquirer’s offer), leads me the acquisition of proxy advisory firm RiskMetrics.  RiskMetrics is a great tool to view how strong companies are, regarding their board and internal structure, who may be vulnerable to unsolicited or hostile targeted bids.  MSCI is an interesting acquirer of this set as they are index focused and potentially looking to  build out their index portfolio with a purchase of Russell Investments after a failed bid for the famed Dow Jones indexes.

All in all, a healthy Merger Monday is a good sign of things to come.  That and sun after a particularly blustery weekend!

The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 4.23 points to 10,325.26.  The S&P 500 tacked on a small 1.51 point gain (+0.13%, 1,104.49) and the Nasdaq 100 was up 5.77 points (+0.31%, 1,818.68).  On the month the DJIA added 257 points (+2.55%), the S&P 500 climbed 30.71 points (+2.86%) and the Nasdaq 100 showed that the place to be in February was in technology, gaining 77.75 points (+4.47%).

Across all markets, bonds and commodities did the best with interest rates dropping in 14 of 17 major economies worldwide.  EVEN the Greek 10-year was lower by 30 basis points as bond prices rose on news the German Government might buy Greek debt through a state owned bank.  This strengthened the euro against the dollar causing commodities to rise.

Yesterday, I mentioned the CurrencyShares Euro Trust (NYSE: FXE) was something to keep your eye on thinking that the news in Greece has got to get better sometime.  The timing was spot-on (better to be lucky than good sometimes, but being right gets paid) as the FXE closed higher today than all but one day in the last two weeks of trading.  If the bad news has washed itself out, any further positive developments about the Greek Tragedy of 2010 will be bullish for the euro, commodities and stocks.

On the flip side of this, the PowerShares DB US Dollar Index (NYSE: UUP) closed lower than all days but one in the past two trading weeks.  Looks like the dollar is a bit high here, and with the possibility of Washington D.C. passing the $1 trillion health care bill next week via ‘reconciliation’, the path of least resistance for the greenback is down.  If the carry trade cowboys get involved here, shorting the dollar and buying stocks, March may indeed come in like a lion.

New York spot gold rose $10.00 an ounce to $1,116.60 (+0.90%, 4:22 p.m.).  A break out here would be at about the $1,130 level with support at $1,060.  The SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) chart is starting to look very interesting with resistance at $111.  The only thing I do not like about the chart is the stochastics are too high, but a close (2 closes even better) through $111 and I am a buyer.  The GLD closed up $1.12 (+1.03%, $109.43).

Nymex crude is pushing $80 again up $1.51 today to $79.68 a barrel (+1.93%, 4:26 p.m.).  Analysts think that crude will trade more off of supply and demand fundamentals and less as a reaction to the dollar in the future.  This sounds like it means that oil will trade on the premise of a better functioning economy and not on gloom and doom and fiscal nightmares.

Existing Home Sales were reported this morning at down 7.2% (January) to a seven month low (5.05M vs. 5.5M expected).  Last month sales dropped off a cliff (-16.7%) and analysts did not have to think too hard as to why.  NO JOBS.  An economy can turn up or down on simple expectations.  You have a job and things are good, but then a friend gets the axe and your brother calls to tell you his company just shut down.  You may still have a good job, but you are not dying to go buy a new house at this point.

The federal tax credit for new home buyers seems to not have helped as much lately and I have a theory – all the new home buyers that were going to buy a home already did.  I do not think they are going to squeeze a lot more out of that program.  Also, in December you go Christmas shopping not house shopping and it is cold in January.  Hopefully, sales pick up in the coming months but with all this snow in February I would not bet on a strong number.

I saved this for last to go out on a good note: The USA Men’s Hockey Team beat Finland 6 -1 in the semifinals today and will play the winner of tonight’s Canada-Slovakia game for the Gold.  Team USA vs. Canada will be a great game to watch.  Win or lose that one, Team USA is cranking out the medals faster than Freeport-McMoran (NYSE: FCX) and this has been a great Winter Olympics for our athletes and for us.

Have a great weekend.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded as low as 10,185 (-188, -1.82%) before staging an impressive 137 point rally off the lows to finish with a loss of only 53.13 points on the day (-0.51%, 10,321.03).  The S&P 500 dropped 2.30 points (-0.20%, 1,102.94) and the Nasdaq 100 showed some relative strength, closing in the green fractionally (+0.40, +0.02%, 1,812.91)

The ‘non-partisan’ politicians were at it again in Washington D.C. as top Republicans and Democrats got together for a televised health care summit.  If you watched this it was an exercise in people talking and not listening.  While this is not unusual with our hot-air oversupplied elected officials, the ‘discussion’ turned a bit hostile at times with Obama interrupting McCain, McCain snapping back with ‘let me finish’ and other unpleasantness.  My favorite part had to be when Obama criticized Cantor for bringing all 2,400 pages of the bill to the meeting discussing that bill.  I never knew how thick a document that is 2,400 pages was until today and it seemed Obama did not want the rest of the country to see it either.

At the $1 trillion price tag put on the health care bill, each page is worth (spends) about $417 billion.  Maybe the U.S. Treasury should just start printing copies of the health care bill and forget about printing dollars.  We could pay off the national debt in no time but just try carrying the change home when you go buy a six-pack of Coke.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) is in hot water over the role they played in structuring a large loan to Greece in 2001 such that it looked like a currency transaction.  Greece no doubt did this to hide the debt from the European Union and Goldman did it for a very large commission.  Goldman stock dropped $1.89 to $156.44.

Apple Inc. (NSDQ: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs told shareholders the company was going to sit tight on its $40 billion cash hoard as having that kind of money in the bank provides “tremendous security and flexibility.”  Apple has never been too active in buying other companies, preferring to develop their own technology, rarely buys stock back and does not pay a dividend.  With economic times like these sitting on a mountain of cash is a great idea but just try keeping track of the 160,000 accounts you need to keep $250,000 or less in for FDIC protection.

New York spot gold bounced back for a gain today for the first time in three days.  The precious yellow metal added $8.20 to $1,105.40 (+0.75%, 4:39 p.m.).  Over the past few days I have seen a lot of stories and heard chatter on the financial TV shows about the coming demise of gold.  With central banks worldwide being net buyers, a $1.56 trillion budget deficit and U.S. national debt skyrocketing I don’t believe it for a second.  Want to see gold go through the roof?  If that health care plan gets passed or that massively deficient budget gets ratified hang on tight – we are going for a wild upside ride.

I commented yesterday to keep a close eye on the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (NYSE: GLD) and a support level of $104.  The GLD closed slightly above its 50 day exponential moving average today ($108.31 vs. $108.15) and this is a positive sign.  The numbers to watch on the GLD are $104 and $111.  A close above $111 would be signaling a possible break out and a close below $104 a possible break down.

Nymex crude does not seem to be able to hold the $80 level as the barrel dropped $1.74 today on weaker economic expectations (-2.18%, $78.26, 4:44 p.m.).

The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index (NYSE: UUP) gapped up on the open but traded lower all day long losing 0.21% (-$0.05, $23.71).  If you think this Greek tragedy is blowing over keep an eye on the CurrencyShares Euro Trust (NYSE: FXE).  A very large volume spike last Friday could have marked this as a reversal low and it has pretty much been trading sideways all week.  If it rises above $136 I would get very interested.  Besides, how many more days can they strike in Greece anyway?  All the bad news could be out.

Tomorrow we have GDP at 8:30 a.m. (5.7%, 0.6%), Chicago PMI at 9:45 a.m. (60.0), Consumer sentiment at 9:55 a.m. (73.7) and Existing Home Sales at 10 a.m. (5.5M)

Fed Presidents Naranyana Kocherlakota (Minneapolis), William Dudley (New York), Charles Evans (Chicago) and Fed Gov. Daniel Tarullo speak at the annual U.S. Monetary Policy Forum in New York tomorrow.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average regained some of yesterday’s lost ground closing higher by 91.75 points (+0.89%, 10,374.16).  The S&P 500 added 10.64 points (+0.97%, 1,812.51) and the tech heavy Nasdaq 100 led the three indexes, up 18.69 points (+1.04%, 1,812.51)

The finance sector responded strongly as Bernanke spoke and on news that key senators are opposed to limits on commercial banks making bets with their own capital.  More trading news was made today as an SEC panel voted 3-2 to limit short selling on a down-tick on stocks that are down more than 10% on a day.  The new rule would make short positions only able to be entered on an uptick if a stock is down over 10% from its previous daily close in one day, and for all of the next trading day.  Quite frankly, this rule change is more for political cover for the SEC as they try to look like they are doing something.  The markets dropped drastically last year and all of a sudden, people looking for someone to blame pointed fingers at short sellers and the SEC.

The Effects of Short Selling

Fact is, short-selling adds liquidity to the market and just like with any trade, if the short-seller is wrong they can lose money.  An all to common public perception that short sellers cause stocks to go down too much is unfounded as there has to be a reason to bet that stock is going lower in the first place.  Short sellers will put a short position on if they think the stock is too expensive.  Some reasons for this might be that the company’s fundamentals are bad, the economy is headed lower or the stock has risen too far, too fast.

A way to think about short selling is; 1) Stocks are competing with each other for invest-able funds, and those that have better reason to be invested in get those funds and go higher, 2) Current investors in short-seller favored stocks may sell them to buy the more attractive stock, 3) The company that loses this invest-able funds ‘popularity contest’ are judged to be weaker and with no buying interest to counter-act regular selling, the stock goes lower, 4) On their own, short sellers would not be able to push a stock lower, as they have to ‘buy-in’ these shorts sooner or later, creating a ‘built-in’ demand for the stock.  Only the sellers of ‘long stock’ can sell the stock and walk away.  The short sellers have to be there to buy the stock back in and are nothing but future demand potential for that stock.

So if short selling cannot, by itself, make a stock go down, what is the SEC actually accomplishing here?  As long as their is sufficient liquidity in a stock, short selling is not the reason a stock is going down.  The SEC dropped the ball on policing ‘naked short selling.’  Naked short sales increase the supply of an issuer’s (company’s) effective outstanding stock, and is also illegal.  A lot of people should either be in jail right now, or should have paid large fines made money on naked short selling over the past few years.  If the SEC had done their job properly with the naked short sellers they would not be trying to save face right now by tinkering with legitimate short selling.  Period.

New York spot gold dropped $6.80 an ounce to $1,096.70 (-0.62%, 4:30 p.m.) and Nymex crude regained the $80 a barrel plateau, up $1.31 to $80.17 a barrel (+1.66%, 4:23 p.m.).  The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index (NYSE: UUP) dropped 0.20% (-$0.05, $23.76) and this throws a red flag.  Gold dropped and is acting weak while the dollar is dropping, which says to me gold has internal weakness.

Looking at the chart of the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (NYSE: GLD) we see that it failed to take out the resistance level at $111 and has rolled over and traded down to $107.36.  The stochastic oscillator looks to be topping out and rolling lower too.  The GLD did break the downtrend line from it’s all time high and this is a positive.  The next technical test for the GLD will be to see if it closes below $104 (twice in a row).  If this happens we have a lower low and strong trading stocks do not do that.  I suspect the ETF is going to trade sideways for awhile and consolidate.  The GLD will head down to $104 and flirt with breaking it – if it breaks for two consecutive sub $104 closes that is a sell signal.  If it holds and starts to head back up – buy more.

The S&P 500 lost 13.41 points (-1.21%, 1,094.60) and the Nasdaq 100 dropped 23.81 points (-1.3%, 1,793.82).

Low confidence seems to be a global problem as Germany, Europe’s largest economy, reported their Ifo Business Index unexpectedly dropped from 95.8% to 95.2% while analysts were expecting a rise to 96.4%.  Strikes, walk-outs and protests are occurring all across Europe as workers, unhappy with delayed retirements and just about everything else economically, vent their frustrations.  Here in the United States not a lot of people are going on strike as a quick look at the news headlines shows people are still getting laid off and fired left and right.  The Metropolitan Transit Authority in NYC is cutting 1,000 jobs, including top managers while San Francisco prepares to let 900 teachers and other school employees go.

No jobs means no paychecks.  No paychecks means no purchases and that means no need for workers to make no products being sold.  I saw a news headline with the word ‘deflation’ in it today, which is the first time for this in about a month as most economists thought we averted that disaster.  Guess again.  I would not advise going on strike or protesting your pay as the latest estimates are that 19.9% or 1 in 5 workers are under-employed.  Supply and demand for jobs right now is in the employers favor as, chances are, there is someone out there willing to do your job for less.

Anyone looking for good news can notice that Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) was up 3.47% today (+$0.39, $11.60), and to see an auto company and Home Depot up in a down market like this lets you know anything can be turned around.  Remember when General Motors was going out of business and Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) was king of the hill?  Today, Toyota executives testified to a hostile Congressional Committee about their 8 million vehicle recall, a pesky sticking accelerator and cars that can turn into a 100 mph run away horse with a mind of its own.  Toyota stock finished down 1.89% (-$1.38, $71.55).

Trading screens were mostly red as nothing seemed to escape the broad selling.  Stocks, oil, gold, commodities all finished lower with the dollar a tiny island of green on my trading screen.  The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index (NYSE: UUP) closed up $0.13 (+0.54%, $23.81), New York spot gold dropped $$9.60 an ounce (-0.86%, $1,103.00, 4:37 p.m.) and Nymex crude gave up the $80 level dropping $1.23 to $79.08 a barrel (-1.53%, 4:30 p.m.)

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan gave a very disturbing picture of the economy, saying the recovery was ‘unbalanced’ and that high-income consumers were one of the main drivers of consumption.  These consumers are spending more as the market is up but, if this market starts to drop again and they clam up their wallets, it could accelerate the drop.  Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairwoman Sheila Bair stated the agency now has 702 banks on their ‘distressed’ list, up from 552 at the end of September.  This time around the problems are driven mostly by trouble with commercial real estate.

To end with at least an attempt to have a positive attitude – it’s not Monday.

The market traded sideways most of the day until 3:30 p.m. when selling drove the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 18.97 points (-0.18%, 10,383.38) and the S&P 500 lost 1.16 points (-0.10%, 1,108.01).  The Nasdaq 100 was weakest dropping 5.69 points (-0.31%, 1,817.63).

Looking at the charts of the HMO’s and I see ‘buy, buy, buy’.  Humana had the biggest gain today but also the best chart when you balance risk and return.  Humana traded off to its 50 day exponential moving average over the last month, held it as support, and rose today on heavy volume.  The stochastic oscillator has bottomed out and is heading up and the short term down trendline was broken to the upside.  Looks like the stock could easily reach its previous high close of $51.94 soon, which would give you an 8.5% return.  The charts are similar for all the major HMO’s (AET, WLP, CI, UNH) but Humana’s chart offers the least amount of upside resistance, safety of support and percentage return combination.

Oil stocks were weak today which was unusual as the dollar was down slightly, Nymex crude broke $80 a barrel for the first time in a month and Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE: SLB) officially announced their takeover of Smith International Inc. (NYSE: SII).  Last Friday rumors of this deal flew around Wall Street trading desks driving the stock of Smith up 13% (+$3.33, $41.03).  Today’s official announcement of the $11 billion deal added another 8.8% for a two day gain of 23%.  New York spot gold dropped $5.00 to $1,112.10 an ounce (-0.45%, 4:25 p.m.)

Two good reasons to stay away from the municipal bond market are the very low current interest rate environment (with bonds, when rates are low prices are high) and news out from the National Governors Association that for 2011 states are seeing total cumulative budget deficits of $53.6 billion, rising to $61.6 billion in 2012.  If you find a bond with a yield and credit you like and buy with the intention to hold until maturity, municipals might still be for you.  The problem here is that with these deficits and tax receipts weak as a result of the high unemployment rate, any bond you buy may get downgraded and drop in value.  States cannot print their own money and many are finding it politically difficult to cut spending, so without raising taxes the budget deficits will weaken the credit behind the bonds.  I do not think buying a municipal bond and hoping they raise my taxes to make my bond not drop in value is a strategy for me as one giveth and one taketh away, leaving me with nothing-eth.

Speaking of being left with nothing-eth, one of the new taxes proposed in the resurrection of health care reform is a Medicare tax on capital gains.  When I was studying economics in graduate school, commonly accepted good practice was to tax the area of the economy that the tax revenues were going to be used for.  This is thought to be a more efficient way of instituting tax policy as when you ignore this proper practice you eventually end up with a million taxes coming from this area and going to that area, or a massive spider web of tax and effect confusion.  When you levy a tax somewhere it distorts the way that taxed item functions, so the idea is if you have to tax, use the tax to shape what you are taxing in a more desirable manner.  You do not just run around like it’s an Easter egg hunt going “Hey look, there’s money over here – tax it!”

The current Administration has already announced their intention to raise the capital gains tax so this would be an additional tax on top of the new tax hike.  Why do I get the feeling there is a guy in Washington D.C. with a dartboard, a blindfold on and a handful of darts that say ‘new taxes’ on them?  Also, didn’t Obama promise that if you made less than $200,000 a year your taxes would not go up ‘one penny?’  If you own any stocks outside of an IRA or 401(k) plan and do not make that kind of money, your taxes are going up.