Stocks are poised to open mixed on Tuesday as investors digest yesterday's big gains and the latest bit of economic data. The three major U.S. stock indexes were largely flat ahead of the start of trading on Wall Street. The Dow industrials and S&P 500 were each up about a point, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq was down slightly.

More economic data is to be released today, including a report by the Commerce Department on November factory orders due at 10 a.m. Eastern time. Consensus estimates call for a 0.1% rise for the month, according to Briefing.com. At about the same time the National Association of Realtors will release data on existing home sales for November. Expectations are that sales slipped 2% in the month, following a 3.7% rise in October.

Jack Dorsey is accustomed to dealing in small. In 2006, he co-founded social media sensation Twitter, which traffics in content bites that are no more than 140 characters in length. He left his position as CEO a year ago (and remains chairman) and is now focusing on his newest endeavor: mobile payments. He came up with the idea for his new company, Square, a year ago and hopes it will revolutionize how money is exchanged.

The first product that Square is bringing to market lives up to its name: it's a small cube-shaped credit card terminal that can plug into an iPhone's headset jack. The problem that the device is intended to solve is the swift and easy transaction of credit card payments for anyone. It was inspired by the plight of Dorsey's friend, Jim McKelvey, a glass artist who lost a $2,000 sale because he couldn't accept credit card payments.

This little gem was perpetuated by tech guru and investor Roger McNamee. Of course, he is a member of the Palm (PALM) board of directors, and his firm is an investor in the company.

Did I mention that PALM shot up after his comment, before the mediocre and overpriced Pre hit the market? The company then issued shares a few days later? You and I would go to jail for doing this.

The market staged an impressive rally this year, but it was predicated on some very big lies, as opposed to solid fundamentals or the beginnings of a real recovery in the U.S. economy.

The biggest lie investors were fed? That, statistically, the recession "officially" ended in Q3 when we saw 3.5% GDP growth. Sure the Bureau of Economic Analysis revised their number substantially in November, saying we only saw 2.8% growth, but this was growth nonetheless ... according to the statistics.

As I write this, Google Inc. (GOOG) shares are trading at $600.25, up 1.2%. Google stock has been on fire, up 95% year-to-date, and analysts seem to just keep pumping it up.

Just Monday, Jefferies & Co. analyst Youssef Squali upped Google's share price target to $695. His reasoning has mostly to do with Google's search business. He sees rising cost per click due to strong demand in the U.S. and Europe; increases reported by Yahoo! (YHOO) and AOL (AOL) of their revenue per search and CPM that Google would also experience; and expected growth in online ad prices due to e-commerce growth.

While Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) continues losing hundreds of thousands of customers every quarter, it has actually raised the bar on offering cutting-edge smartphones at the same time. Smartphones, which are slowly but surely replacing the standard cellphone for the typical "always need to be connected" consumer, are helping wireless carriers drum up wireless data revenue to replace the lost voice revenue as customers talk less.

In the online music world, there is a trail of dead companies. But, some have somehow found ways to not only survive -- but thrive. One is Shazam, which builds applications for mobile phones.

This week, the firm hit 50 million users. And, it was also able to secure venture funding from the premier VC firm, Kleiner Perkins (the other investors include Acacia Venture Partners and DN Capital). The amount was not disclosed.

What explains the success of Shazam? First of all, the company has cool technology that lets your phone hear a song and then it will figure out its name as well as the artist.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says Research In Motion's troubles are an exception to the greatness of the mobile Internet theme.

No, this isn't meant to be a bullish article. I am just trying to put Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) (Cramer's Take) in perspective because I think that people will confuse the greatness of the mobile Internet theme with the hazards of investing in the BlackBerry maker.

First, you have to ask yourself, what really went wrong with RIMM? Was it demand? No, demand was strong. They actually guided to the upper end of units. The issue was average selling price because it has gotten more competitive out there.

By 2013, more than $4 billion will be spent on smartphone applications, according to a new study by the Yankee Group ... and the estimate is said to be conservative. With the average owner of one of these devices downloading around 20 applications a year, it's obvious that this market is getting ready to pop. Currently, only $343 million is spent in this space.

An increase in the number of smartphone applications available -- for Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone, Reasearch in Motion's (NASDAQ: RIMM) Blackberry, and Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android -- and rising prices for these applications will push the total size of this market higher.

The only DOW component reporting earnings this morning is Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ). The nation's largest wireless carrier reported second quarter numbers that fell inline with analyst estimates.

Going into this morning's earnings report, analysts polled by Thompson Financial expected Verizon to earn 63 cents per share. Excluding merger and various one-time labor costs, Verizon was able to match that number.

Normally we think of revolutionary products created by start-ups or entrepreneurial minds just out of college, but the most talked about new projects of 2009 are being produced by some of the best known companies in the world.

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN): With its massive online presence and a truly efficient business model, Amazon has become the largest online retailer in the world. It is now taking on a new business, web services, namely cloud computing (learn more HERE), called the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). While hosting this infrastructure and presenting e-commerce with a reasonably affordable alternative with no up-front costs, Amazon has taken an early lead in this space, with some believing its cloud computing business will one day overtake retailing. "Amazon will be like a book store that sells cocaine out the back door. Books will be just a front to sell storage and cloud computing." says Larry Dignan, Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic.

Readers of this space know that the investment bias is toward large-cap companies with demonstrated business models and who have a competitive advantage in established markets, preferably with a favorable, global trend as a support. However, every once in a while, and exception is made, and Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) is one.

In general, analysts see a 20-35% increase in FY 2010 revenue, driven primarily by, of course, RIMM's wildly popular wireless smartphone, the BlackBerry, which supports global mobile voice and e-mail.

Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is a company with $31 per share in cash on hand that just can't get a break. Analysts have begun downgrading the stock on fears that sales of Macs and iPhones will slow. As Apple hadn't been beaten down enough, shares dove today. Sentiment on Apple is rapidly deteriorating.

Meanwhile, Hedge Fund Research, a company that tracks hedge fund returns, released its February stats for how the hedgies performed. According to HFR, the hedgies beat the market soundly, losing only 0.5% in the month.

The once proud Schaumburg, Illinois-based Motorola (NYSE: MOT) has never fully recovered from the collapse of the technology sector in 2000. From its peak of over $57 in February 2000, MOT lost 75% of its market cap the next 12 months and surrendered another 50% over the following two years.

The stock is currently trading at $3.90 after reaching a low for the last 52 weeks of $3. The stock traded at the high for the period in mid-November, reaching $12.59.

Before the market opens tomorrow, mobile device maker Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is going to be announcing its fourth quarter numbers, and analysts are expecting to see a break even quarter from the struggling company.

Despite being one of the best known makers of cell phones, Motorola has had a tough couple of years, and has been losing its market share at an alarming rate. In 2007, the company remained the number two maker of cell phones, but 2008 was tough on the company, which now finds itself down in fifth place in market share.