Goldman Goes to Defends Energy Trading; Consumer Confidence Falls on Job Worries; Home Price Erosion Continues to Slow; Congress Works to Ban Incentive Pay, Give Shareholders a Voice on Bonuses; IBM Expands Its Data-Crunching Business;

No other asset class comes close to commodities over the last six years. Not stocks, not bonds, not real estate and not even most emerging markets. In fact, even during the worst credit crisis in the United States in 60 years, commodity benchmarks continue to hit new all-time highs in 2008.