Commodities Won't Save Wall Street

Brokerage execs can't say enough lately about commodities trading.

On the various firms' third-quarter earnings conference calls over the past two months, executives heralded commodities trading as the one business they have that's totally untainted by the credit crunch -- and promising from a growth point of view.

Outifts such as JPMorgan(JPM Quote), Lehman Brothers(LEH Quote), Merrill Lynch(MER Quote) and Morgan Stanley(MS Quote) -- which have otherwise been reeling from turmoil in the credit markets tied to the collapse of subprime mortgage securities -- have added substantially to their trading desks this year. ...