Listen to what Richard Parkus of Deutsche Bank has to say about commercial real estate. He said that "We are not only not approaching stability, we are at a period of maximum deterioration."

We have often said that after the collapse of residential real estate in the last year, the next shoe to drop would be the commercial market. What is being wrung out of the home market is now beginning to be felt big time in commercial real estate. Landlords are putting together all kinds of packages, including free rent and other perks, and still prices are falling. It is believed that values are down a whopping 50% from their peak in 2007.

Is the unemployment picture getting any better? The truth is that's its hard to tell. The Labor Department said that initial claims for state unemployment insurance rose 3,000 to 608,000. The expected number was 600,000. This is especially disturbing since this is the time of year when most hiring in done, mainly in the construction trades.

However, there is some good news. Continued claims for unemployment (those persons already on the rolls) fell by 148,000 to 6.69 million. This was the lowest level since May 9, as well as the largest one-week drop since November 2001. This indicates that persons already on the rolls are finding work, and that's good news.

Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) just keeps on ingraining itself into every customer niche it can. It's already entering the Chinese market. It may be coming to an airport near you. Now, possibly expect Best Buy to be seen in a shopping mall in your area soon.

In the Washington D.C. area, the largest consumer electronics retailer will open a new 3,000-square-foot stand-alone location inside the Fair Oaks Mall today that will sell wireless phones, laptop PCs and all types of accessories for both product categories.

There will be two more mall openings by Best Buy this month in yet-to-be disclosed locations. It will be double the size of the Best Buy Mobile kiosks already in place within some malls and will have locations next to your favorite Hollister or Yankee Candle stores.

According to the retailer, these new mall concept stores will cater to teens and women -- many of whom don't like shopping at its big-box locations. Best Buy has already turned its focus to women shoppers, and these new openings are just another leg in the stool from where I sit. Well done.

Oil plunged more than $8 to about $136 Tuesday at mid-day after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's indicated the risks to U.S. growth have increased as a result of credit market losses, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday.

Oil fell $9.26 to $135.92 per barrel before recovery slightly. Oil hit a record of $147.27 per barrel on July 11.

The other major energy commodities, likewise, plummeted on the news. Heating oil plunged almost 15 cents to $3.91 per gallon, unleaded gasoline sank almost 17 cents to $3.39 per gallon, and natural gas plunged 44 cents to $11.51 per million BTUs.

"Oil in free-fall"

Energy trader Jim Dietz said "a mini selling frenzy" hit the oil market after Bernanke indicated the U.S. economy was likely to slow further.

"We did have some support for an oil-long trade earlier as an investment when few other investments are working, but that sentiment was quickly wiped out by Bernanke's comments," Dietz said. "We had oil in free-fall for about an hour. The market put 'two and two together.' We had the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout news yesterday [Monday] and Bernanke's bearish comments today. That led a lot of people to conclude we're going to see a slowdown in oil demand growth, which means lower prices."

I didn't think Disney's (NYSE: DIS) Wall-E movie would do as well as it did over the weekend. I thought $60 million was too much to hope for (see my previous piece on the subject). I was wrong. According to Boxofficemojo, the Pixar picture pulled in more than $62 million at domestic theaters and came out on top.

Assuming the film continues to do well in upcoming weekends, Wall-E should provide a nice counterbalance to the relative disappointment of Disney's Prince Caspian project that was released in May. While Wall-E won't move Disney's stock all by itself, the movie and its characters should help drive the studio segment in future quarters, as well as provide some opportunities for promotions and initiatives in other parts of the company, such as the theme parks.

Wanted, distributed by General Electric's (NYSE: GE) Universal, debuted in second place with a haul of more than $50 million. The movie, starring Angelina Jolie, had some snazzy, Matrix-like commercials powering its appeal. I can see why the numbers were big on this one. Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) and Get Smart didn't stand a chance against Wanted. It dropped two spots to third place with a tally of $20 million. And, no, I still don't find Steve Carell funny.

Going into 2008, it's been an extreme experience for online brokers. There has been considerable volatility in equities, with the major averages falling an average of 10%. What's more, home prices remain depressed.

So, for a company like optionsXpress (NASDAQ: OXPS), which relies heavily on the retail investor, it's been a challenge. Yet, the company somehow keeps growing.

In Q1, profits increased 12% to $23.8 million, or $0.38 per share. Revenues were up 11% to $60.8 million.

Basically, optionsXpress continues to be effective with customer acquisition, especially with its broad tools and educational resources. It also helps that its competitors – such as E*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) – are suffering.

When the news first broke that low-level rogue trader Jerome Kerviel had racked up $7 billion in unauthorized trading losses, many people were puzzled. What was his motive? How had he gotten away with it? Mr. Kerviel was believed to have acted alone, but did he really?

Now The New York Times is reporting that French police have arrested Manuel Zabraniecki in connection with the case. We're wondering what his role in this disaster might have been and, perhaps more interestingly, what possible motive he might have had. As bizarre as it was that Kerviel had lost $7 billion worth of the bank's money without profiting personally, it's even more difficult to fathom a conspiracy involving more than one person committing a motive-less financial crime.

In the meantime, you'll be happy to know that, as of early February, Mr. Kerviel had not been fired because, The Wall Street Journal reported, "French law stipulates that to do that, the bank must first call him in for a sit-down meeting and explain its dissatisfaction. He has the right to bring along a trade-union official, a lawyer or anyone else he'd like."

I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that meeting.

The Treasury and some members of Congress are concerned that sovereign funds from the Middle East and Asia may use their investments in US banks and corporations to push their global political goals. Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs David McCormick said the government-controlled funds may raise "legitimate national security concerns," and may distort markets if not managed properly, according to MarketWatch.

If the large funds walk away from investing in the US, especially when banks and brokerages may need more money to weather the credit crisis, finding large pools of capital may be difficult.

But, one sovereign fund, Singapore state investor Temasek, appears to be willing to agree to make official its intention to put money into US companies for only "financial" reasons. According to Reuters, "A Temasek Holdings executive told a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee that it supports the aim of U.S. lawmakers to maintain the right balance between national security and investment flows."

The FCC says that cable company Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) is slowing service to some of its customers, especially those who use a great deal of bandwidth on video downloads and peer-to-peer software applications. Comcast says it is simply managing its network so that it does not get overloaded and hurt service to all customers.

The debate came to a head yesterday. According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), "Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin warned cable giant Comcast that the government is `ready, willing and able' to stop companies from improperly hobbling Internet traffic."

The FCC position is a little out of touch with reality. Telecom companies and cable firms do not have an unlimited amount of bandwidth to offer each and every home. At some point, the pipes do become overloaded. The cynical view is that these large companies want to charge heavy users more money for taking up more bandwidth. What is probably more accurate is that, unless there is some governor of internet use, the system will slow for everyone.

A cup can only hold so much water.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) will start a proxy fight for Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) "unless Yahoo reverses course and enters into talks' regarding its $44.6 billion unsolicited offer," according to The New York Times' DealBook blog. I'll believe it when I see it.

First of all, proxy battles are a gigantic pain in the butt. The bigger the deal, the larger the hassles. There are lawyers, proxy solicitation firms and deal PR firms to pay. M&A reporters at the major media outlets have to be wooed. It takes forever.

Yahoo's board probably won't meet until June. Plenty of things can happen between now and then. Probably, the only reason why Microsoft is even considering a proxy fight is because Yahoo does not have a staggered board, meaning all of its directors are up for renomination this year.

Investors need to remember that the media loves to hype potential battles like proxy battles even if the chances of them actually happen are quite remote.

Freelance writer Jonathan Berr edits the blog Ketchup and Eggs.