A number of markets in Asia were down 2% or more lead by the Shanghai Composite which is off 45% since the beginning of the year, according to MarketWatch.

In Japan, the Nikkei dropped 2.1% to 13,888.6. Sony (NYSE:SNE) was down 2.8% to 5,130 yen. Toyota (NYSE:TM) was off 2.7% to 5,400.

The Hang Seng fell 1.7% to 22,925.31. China Life (NYSE:LFC) fell 2.4% to 28.40 yuan. China Petroluem (NYSE:SNP) dropped 2.7% to 7.39.

Data from Reuters.

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

Sony Corporation (NYSE: SNE) has made two deals with Napster and 7digital.com to bundle music with "certain Walkman-branded portable music devices." Both deals apply to products sold in the United Kingdom, and offer similar vouchers and trials for tracks and the services to consumers.

Sony's deal with 7digital.com will package vouchers with the "Walkman Wirefree" series that give consumers the opportunity to download five free music videos. It is the first such deal with a hardware manufacturer for 7digital.com, a British-based digital store. Ben Drury, the company's CEO, acknowledges that the partnership is intended "to provide more choice for consumers, encourage more competition in the digital music market and ultimately offer a better deal for the consumer." The same devices will also come "pre-loaded with the Napster service" and those models will offer users "five free downloadable tracks, and a free 14-day trial of the Napster To Go service." Napster's VP of sales and marketing for Europe, Thorsten Schliesche, comments that the partnership is designed to "offer music lovers a complete service from the moment they purchase the product."

The goal of offering consumers and listeners a complete service right away indicates that at least hardware makers and digital stores are aware that music fans want the product. Easily available and quick access mean that users of this product will at least have access to a large range of tracks already available. Other devices have featured similar services, but never bundled with free music. Although the amount offered free of charge comes with limits, the ease of listening to future music should make it desirable.

Readers of this space know that one argument forwarded here is that in the era of elevated energy prices the oil/natural gas services sector is likely to remain strong for the foreseeable future, barring the discovery of cheap, widely-available, alternative energy. And among oil/natural gas services companies, Schlumberger is worth an evaluation.

Oilfield services company Schlumberger (NYSE: SLB) (pronounced: "shlum-bur-ZJAY") is likely to benefit from growing demand for oilfield services technology, particularly in the high-technology-dependent Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe regions.

Further, although North American margins have narrowed somewhat to-date in 2008, international margins remain large. Overall, in 2008 analysts see SLB's margins totaling 28% -- still a very healthy figure -- with revenue growth of 12-14% for 2008, and 16-20% for 2009.

Additional positives: Look for Schlumberger to continue to register solid revenue gains in the Eastern Hemisphere, as the company concentrates on higher-growth regions. The Reuters F2008/F2009 EPS consensus estimates for SLB are $4.80/$5.88.

Two reports indicate that EMI Group's Capitol Records will lose its president by the end of June, and no new leader will be appointed by the major label's new management structure. Lee Trink, the president of Capitol Records, may also be followed by the departure of Capitol Music Group, the regional arm of EMI over North America, chairman and CEO Jason Flom. Billboard notes Trink's "departure would come two weeks after the scheduled June 17 release of the new Coldplay album Viva la Vida," and many music industry watchers expect that album to be the financial and critical hinge that EMI is basing its summer around.

Fox News reported a similar story, but added that Guy Hands and other Terra Firma leaders -- the equity firm that bought EMI last fall -- "don't believe in label presidents." The new structure of EMI labels will feature newly created "A&R Presidents" and heads of marketing, but no one person will singly supports and represents the artists that are releasing albums through EMI. Fox News comments as well that no one at EMI had informed the acts or management representing them, emphasizing the acts that have left EMI in recent months and the acts that sell the most CDs for EMI, like The Beatles and its record label/management firm Apple Corps Ltd.

Like the columnist for Fox News, I have to wonder what in the world is the management of Terra Firma thinking with EMI. First of all, the music company is not the no. 1 of the big four companies. Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) sell far more music and appear to be far better managed than EMI -- even before this rearrangement. It's hard to hope that that new Coldplay album will sell well, at least for the record label. The band and its management are certainly promoting it in superb ways, but with this revelation it seems like EMI is poised to profit from the marketing without any real input or effort. That could be wrong, but when it is an Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) commercial that pushes the album more than any other source, it is not the record company I think about. It's the band and iTunes.

OPEC said Wednesday it wants a "solution" to end record-high oil prices, including an examination of the role speculators and governments of consuming and producing nations, when it meets later this month in Saudi Arabia, Bloomberg News reported.

Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter and holder of the largest proved oil reserves, said it wants heads of state from consumer/producer nations to attend the June 22 meeting in Jeddah, Reuters reported, although it was unclear if any heads of state outside the cartel will attend the meeting.

A International Energy Agency official said the IEA's Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka would attend the meeting.

After a week-long pullpack with many traders calling a correction in a bull market, oil's seemingly inexorable drive to a price few individuals or companies can afford continued Wednesday. Oil closed up $5.11 to $136.42 per barrel after the U.S. Energy Information Administration announced a below-consensus 4.6-million-barrel decline in weekly oil inventories.

Although OPEC's previous meeting in Rome led to no new insights regarding oil, OPEC General Secretary Abdalla el-Badri told Bloomberg News this meeting will be different: "This one is different. This one is specifically to tackle the high oil prices, why they are high, who is to blame," el-Badri said. "Is this a real shortage in the market, or speculation, or the dollar? What is wrong?"

This post is part of a series on some of the most memorable companies that have disappeared.

"When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen," claimed the well-known slogan from the respected broker's ubiquitous ads in the 1970s and 1980s. Well, it seems people stopped listening when E.F. Hutton & Co. was caught check kiting and money laundering.

The American firm was founded in 1904 by Edward Francis Hutton. It grew to become one of the most respected U.S. financial firms, and for many years was the second-largest brokerage in the United States. Edward Hutton held the reins at the company until his death in 1962.

But in 1980 some Hutton branches began shifting funds from one account to another, effectively giving itself interest-free loans until the checks cleared. Of course the scheme eventually came to light, and in 1985 Hutton pleaded guilty to 2,000 counts of mail and wire fraud. However, the SEC uncharacteristically allowed Hutton to stay in business.

An internal investigation in 1987 uncovered that a Providence, Rhode Island, branch was laundering money for a crime family. Hutton voluntarily brought this matter to the SEC, but all signs suggested Hutton couldn't count on leniency a second time. However, this happened just before the stock market crash of 1987. With that, along with all the bad press, the firm's deep debt going back to 1985, and its star performers defecting to other firms, Hutton was on the verge of collapse by the end of the year, and so agreed to be acquired by Shearson Lehman Brothers.

Anheuser-Busch (NYSE: BUD) is recently trading at $62.36 in after-market trading, above its close of $58.35.

BUD announced it has received an unsolicited, non-binding proposal from InBev to acquire all of the outstanding shares of BUD for $65 per share in cash.

BUD call option volume of 101,677 contracts compares to put volume of 26,542 contracts. BUD June option implied volatility went out at 48, July at 41; above its 26-week average of 28 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

According to a Billboard report on Tuesday, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s newly introduced iPhone will not feature a new method to download music from iTunes. Instead, users will only be able to "access and download music" from iTunes with the phone's WiFi connection. Luckily, the new 3G phone will allow a better connection to access the store and download music, but Billboard speculates that Apple has not improved the method because the company is "less enthusiastic" about sharing profits from iTunes purchases with the operator, in this case AT&T Mobility, a part of AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T).

AT&T Mobility apparently expanded and constructed much of the 3G network the iPhone will use over the course of the last year, when the iPhone was first being readied for release. The original iPhone worked on AT&T's slower EDGE network and utilized WiFi hotspots, but "the upgrade allows for faster Web surfing from any location in At&T's 3G coverage area." Ideally, using the upgraded network would also provide users with better access and faster downloads.

It's no surprise that Apple would keep the music features on the iPhone the same as on the previous model, since the improvements made to the new iPhone make it much better over the previous model. At the same time, it seems unlikely that record companies would object to this similarity either, since it means they can still seek out new deals and arrangements with the phone carriers outside of Apple (in this case).

No, the airlines haven't started charging by the pound. At least not yet...

Jokes aside, nobody told the airlines there'd be days like these, to paraphrase John Lennon.

Jet fuel costs -- up 84% in the past year alone -- have skyrocketed, along with the cost of just about every other product derived from the world's most vital commodity, and the airlines are looking for every conceivable way to reduce weight, reduce wind/resistance drag, and increase operational efficiency, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

The major carriers are replacing heavier seats with lighter ones, cleaning engines and planes more often, reducing the fresh water available on flights, and plugging into electric outlets instead of idling engines at the gate, among other changes, in order to cut fuel consumption.

More air travel changes ahead

Moreover, the changes -- and charges -- have only just begun, so says stock analyst C. Leonard Bauer. "Everyone knows about the added bag charges, a pain in the neck, for sure. But it could get worse," says Bauer, who also flies on a major carrier about 5-7 times per year. "In the winter you could see a per pound baggage charge, or something along those lines. So don't pack that extra winter coat when you fly this December."

Father's Day is a special occasion for many of us, a day to show our daddies how much we love them. We give dad some extra attention that day and usually also a present that could make him happy. Kiplinger.com has an interesting idea -- one that I really like -- for a Father's Day present you may want to consider: Find a good stock that could bring him a lot of money.

Let's look at some of the companies Kiplinger's Anne Kates Smith believes would be good options this year:

• O'Reilly Automotive (NASDAQ: ORLY) is an auto parts retailer that is facing weak demand as a result of soaring crude oil prices. However, analysts believe the company's strategy to buy CSK Auto will bring a lot of national success. ORLY is expected to show earnings of $1.76 per share this year and $2.02 next year.
• Stanley Works (NYSE: SWK), headquartered in New Britain, Conn., has the advantage of being one of only two companies offering a complete line of hand tools for consumers. The company focuses its performance on both its industrial tool division and a security business. Analysts forecast a profit of $4.18 this year, and $4.63 a share for next year.

Short selling often tells much about what is going on in a sector, particularly when there is a common trend across the major players in that sector.

The end of May short selling can now be accessed from NASDAQ. Interestingly enough, short sellers at the end of May lightened up almost across the board on major NASDAQ biotech stocks from May 15 to May 30:

STOCK (Ticker)	MAY 30	MAY 15	CHANGE
Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN)	22,678,517	24,778,770	-8.48%
Biogen Idec Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB)	6,346,464	6,788,432	-6.51%
Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ: CELG)	13,775,373	16,336,232	-15.68%
Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD)	32,478,444	32,690,603	-0.65%
ImClone Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: IMCL)	7,149,395	7,664,009	-6.71%

From the major names, a change in the overall trend can be spotted.

You can see the full short selling report for biotechs at BioHealthinvestor.com to see which other biotechs had an increase in short selling and to also see what the more active biotechs with lower market caps saw in their short selling activity.

Today was yet another day where Joe Public felt like he spent a round in the ring with Joe Lewis. It's getting that way again, and now the only real positive is that contrarians may start to get happy.

Oil jumped back up another $5.00 per barrel on inventory numbers reported this morning. The continued weak environment sent financials and airlines into the dirt again. PIMCO's McCulley said he believes that the Fed is understating inflation and the Fed's Beige Book hinted that some higher costs are beginning to be passed down to consumers.

Here are the unofficial closes of major US index levels:
DJIA 12082.14 (-207.62)
S&P500 1335.56 (-22.88)
NASDAQ 2394.01 (-54.93)
10YR T-NOTE 4.07% (-0.026%)
Top 10 Analyst Calls

Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. (NYSE: BUD) saw another big pickup in its call options activity today and then CNBC's David Faber said that InBev in Europe may be close to making an unsolicited bid for the company. Shares were up about 2.3% at $58.45 in the final minutes of the day.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said continental Europe should take the lead in financial market reform because the "Anglo-Saxon" model of regulation had failed, The Financial Times reported Wednesday.

Merkel, speaking before her meeting with U.S. President Bush and ahead of next month's G-8 leading industrialized nations economic summit, called for a European credit ratings agency to counter-balance Moody's and Standard & Poor's (NYSE: MHP), adding that despite the progress Europe has made with the euro, the financial regulatory framework is still "a strongly Anglo-Saxon dominated system."

Reforms sought by Berlin will include a ban on agency ratings for products they helped to create, new capital adequacy ratios for banks, and the prevention of bank sale of products they don't understand.

London-based economist Mark Chandler told BloggingStocks Wednesday he agrees with Merkel on the need for both financial market reform and a Europe-based counterweight to complement the largely U.S.-based regulatory framework, but is slightly surprised by Merkel's rhetoric.

I've been known to harp on consumer retailer Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) from time to time here. The retailer just gets it in most cases -- from the consumer experience to merchandising decisions to customer service. While fellow retailer Circuit city Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC) completely doesn't get it and is in horrid shape, Best Buy just keep steaming along, economic recession be damned. Here's a reason why: its store managers are actually encouraged to go "off script" and change merchandising displays on the fly to fit the area where the store is located.

This example about a normal Houston-areas Best Buy location is a perfect example. Houston, being the large port city that it is, was seeing a huge amount of Eastern European shoppers. As a result, it moved iPods and international power converters to the front of the store (from the rear) and saw sales spike on these items -- among other things -- by 67%. In most cases, changing merchandising displays -- called planograms -- are a huge no-no in corporate retailers. The thinking is that the "secret sauce" that works at one store should be simply duplicated at every store. Big-box retailers like Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) follow this strategy religiously.

Expecting store managers to take risks in terms of merchandising decisions is the kind of thing that makes good retailers great. Contrary to what some national retailers preach and practice, the customer needs vary widely from state to state and market to market in most cases throughout the U.S. Why not have a planogram for every unique store that responds better to the surrounding population and give the local consumer the best and most profitable experience? Looks like Best Buy even made the experience personal for shoppers from halfway around the world. That kind of thinking is why the retailer continues to be successful.

For the first time Monday I heard John McCain comparing Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter. I had heard this before in other arenas, but not from McCain. I guess that despite these two presidential candidates pledging to the American people to bring change and resist politics as usual, they are both, as usual as one could get.

Obama is being shaped by the pressures of running for office and to believe otherwise is delusional. I suppose one has to have hope but the effects of the campaign are becoming clear. Obama has been painting McCain as an extension of Bush, which is nonsense, and now in a typical tit-for-tat response, McCain is filling the air with Carter references.

Both McCain and Obama are wrong in their assessments of their opponents and they are becoming commoners to resort to the bottom of the barrel campaign techniques used in every campaign for most of our nation's proud history. Obama gave up the high ground to easily and McCain has decided he can sling mud with the best of them.