President Obama's plan to slash corporate tax rates from 35% to 28% and overhaul the business tax system is meeting its fair share of criticism after being unveiled yesterday. While the headline number seems to appease both sides of the aisle, the rest of the Administration's plan is raising questions about which "loopholes" will be closed to pay for the tax rate decrease, and will they open the door to even more workarounds.

"The president says he wants to increase overall revenue from corporations, so while he lowers the headline rate a little bit, he broadens the base in sometimes damaging ways," says Chris Edwards, director of tax policy at the Cato Institute.

For Edwards those "damaging ways" include new tax loopholes for things like green cars and buildings, incentives to increase wages and tax credits for manufacturing.

The plan also proposes to bring back money earned by American companies overseas by imposing a new tax on profit made overseas.

"This administration wants to penalize the foreign operations of U.S. companies," says Edwards. "Those foreign earnings were earned in the foreign country, they pay tax on those profits in the foreign countries. There's no real reason why the U.S. Government ought to have a claim on that foreign money."

Still for all its faults, Edwards grades the plan a "C."

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After spending most of its trading day in the red, gold staged a sharp turnaround in the final hour, rising 0.7% to $1,771.30 an ounce --marking a new 2012 closing high. Silver fell 0.3% to $34.25.

A year ago it was the calm before the storm in the metals market. Silver was on its way to a parabolic move that saw prices peak at $48.58 an ounce in late April. And gold --which was trading around $1420 an ounce last February-- climbed to a record high $1920 an ounce in early September.

These moves made precious metals the hottest trades last year; so much so that investors seem either unaware or unimpressed by their strong performance this year. Silver is outperforming most commodities, up 23% year-to-date, and gold up 12%.

For investors like Dan Fitzpatrick, president of stockmarketmentor.com, this is exactly why he believes gold and silver are the "forgotten asset class" and just the type of opportunity he's looking for right now.

"Look at gold, look at silver, they've actually consolidated really nicely in a healthy way," says Fitzpatrick. "They haven't broken down, it's not a top, it's just some really great price action to get these stocks and metals down to levels where investors are starting to buy them."

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The Republican candidates for president face off tonight in the last debate before the next round of primaries on Tuesday, Feb. 28, in Arizona and Michigan. Ahead of the critical Super Tuesday primaries set for March 6, these two races gained importance, not only in terms of delegates but in terms of momentum, after Rick Santorum swept Mitt Romney in the trifecta of races held earlier this month in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri. (See: Ralph Nader's Advice to Gingrich on a Third Party Run: "Go for It!")

The two candidates are now in a virtual tie in Michigan, but Romney still has a slight edge over Santorum in the Arizona, according to an NBC/Marist poll of likely Republican voters. In Arizona, Romney has 43% of the support and Santorum 27%, followed by Newt Gingrich with 16% and Ron Paul in fourth place with 11%. Meanwhile in Michigan, Romney is favored by 37% of voters versus 35% who are supporting Santorum.

The race has certainly

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average which briefly topped 13,000 yesterday for the first time since 2008, made for a great headline but the event was slightly less exciting to those who make their living investing.

"Nobody really looks at the Dow anymore except for news outlets and retail investors," says Dan Fitzpatrick, founder of StockMarketMentor.com. It's an observation based less on snobbery than the simple fact that the Dow has been replaced by other indexes and sectors generally regarded as more useful than a 30 company index based on the dollar value of each share, rather than market capitalization of the underlying company.

The obvious question for Fitzpatrick then is what he is looking at to help him divine market direction, if not the Dow. Fitzpatrick has four better market "tells" he's got his eye on:

The Dow Transports

Unlike the DJIA, which attempts to cram all relevant sectors into 30 stocks, the transportation index is, appropriately enough, all about transportation companies. People, boxes, coal or Christmas cards, if a company moves something from point A to B it's sub-sector is represented in the Transports.

Compared to the major averages the the Transports (^DJT) are lagging; a possible sign that the economy may not be all that it may seem. It's also an obvious reflection of the fact that the airline business may be the toughest industry to make money in the history of man. That's why Fitzpatrick uses more than one tell.

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Existing-home sales increased slightly less than expected in the month of January, up 4.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.57 million, and sales were up 0.7% compared to the same period a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors. This marks the third month in four that sales of existing single family homes, townhomes, condos and co-ops has increased. December home sales, originally seen up 5.0% month-over-month, were revised down to a 4.38 million unit pace, reflecting an 0.5% drop.

"These are good numbers and we've seen many housing numbers lately that have come out positive," says IHS U.S. economist Partick Newport, who believes good weather and positive economic momentum pushed sales higher.

Since the beginning of the year, there's been a lot of chatter over whether the U.S. housing market may have hit bottom. Analysts at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman

For all the wrangling, jaw-boning and fretting, the relationship between the U.S. dollar and the Euro has been stuck in a trading range for more than a month, with (EUR/USD) hanging out around $1.30. According to Marc Chandler, head of global currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman current levels locked into place is a function of both sides of the Euro trade being locked into place.

On the one hand, Chandler says massive short bets against the Euro have been locked in for months, making the bearish side a trade too "crowded" to work. Further stymieing the ursine crowd is the fact that Europe seems to have "taken a step away from the abyss." Even a baby-step from economic calamity marks an improvement over what was expected this time last year.

With the Euro and Dollar striking an uneasy truce Chandler is more focused on the other side of the world. Specifically he's watching the Japanese Yen saying it's the big story in the currency markets right now.

In 2010 and 2011 the Yen was among the strongest currencies in the world, creating an enormous headwind for Japan's export-heavy economy. Since that time the Bank of Japan (BOJ) has attempted to weaken the Yen and shock its economy to life by anouncing another round of its own quantitative easing --a move that should, in theory, weaken the Yen.

Lost in the news of the faux resolution to the Greek budget crisis earlier this week is the fact that the issue hasn't really been Greece at all. Economically speaking Greece will be comatose, at best, for the foreseeable future.

The real goal of all this paper shuffling and gesturing by European officials is saving the rest of the Eurozone. On that front, Marc Chandler says the latest Greek bailout qualifies as at least a partial victory.

"This probably forestalls Spain and Italy from having even bigger problems," says Brown Brother Harriman's Global Head of Currency Strategy.

That's the good news. The bad news, at least for those hoping Europe has finally created a viable firewall, is what Chandler is seeing in Portugal.

Noting that Portugal's bonds "sold off hard" in response to the deal, Chandler says the country that put the P in "PIIGS" is likely to be the next in line. At over 12% yield on their 10-year treasury, Portugal's interest rates are simply too high to allow for sustainable operations, let alone growth. Whether you're a Keynesian money dumper or Austrian laissez faire type, imposed austerity for a country with greater than 14% unemployment and reasonable spending, borders on economic death.

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Global oil prices jumped to a nine-month high Tuesday to $106 a barrel after Iran announced it was stopping oil shipments to France and Britain. Iran is responding to heavy pressure from America, Europe and other allies, who want to stop the country's nuclear power program before the radical regime can build nuclear weapons.

This most recent move by Iran to ban oil exports to the two European countries comes as a direct preemptive response to the European Union's planned Iran oil embargo set for this summer. The EU has already frozen assets of Iran's central bank.

In recent weeks, you've also probably heard news stories about Iran threatening to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. It hasn't happened yet, but Iran has indicated it could close the Strait or take other measures should the country feel threatened enough by the Western allies.

But right now you might be wondering: What is the Strait of Hormuz and why does it matter TO YOU?