Which country's currency is the tenge? You guessed right, it's Kazakhstan.

Falling oil revenues are hitting Russia and the Republic of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan allowed its currency, the tenge, to fall by a whopping 20%. The new rate set by the Kazakh central bank is 150 tenges to the U.S. dollar. In one day, the currency tumbled to 149 from the previous day's level of 122-24.

Oil exports account for 60% of Kazakhstan's foreign exchange, and now, with oil prices dropping sharply, so too did the value of the tenge on world markets.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• According to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), citing people familiar with the matter, E*Trade Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) and TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation (NASDAQ: AMTD) have been in serious merger discussions for weeks, but are still not close to a deal.
• Dubai World, a holding company for the Persian Gulf state, will purchase a 9.5% stake in MGM Mirage (NYSE: MGM), the Kirk Kerkorian controlled Las Vegas casino company, for $5B. The deal will also give Dubai World 50% ownership in CityCenter, MGM's most ambitious development project, reported the Wall Street Journal.
• The Wall Street Journal reported that almost 10 months after Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) acquired YouTube for $1.65B, the video-sharing site is rolling out its first advertisements in the videos.
• The Financial Times (subscription required) reported that private equity firm WL Ross is looking to get involved in the subprime lending business, said the firm's owner, Wilbur Ross. WL Ross may look to acquire lenders, mortgage portfolios or even companies that service loans, Ross added.

• The New York Times reported that Kazakhstan's government is threatening to suspend one of the world's largest oil projects, due to environmental damage it says the work is causing in the Caspian Sea. The consortium developing the field includes Eni, Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM), Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A), ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP), and Total SA (NYSE: TOT).

All sorts of deals occurring this week at General Electric Company (NYSE:GE). The US Air Force has awarded GE Aircraft Engines a contract worth $8.9 million to manufacture and deliver 4,385 nozzle flaps used in aircraft engines. The deal works out to about $2029.65 per flap. You gotta love the wacky world of Pentagon procurement.

A $9 million deal is small peanuts for GE. GE Real Estate negotiated a $2.2 billion deal with Crow Holdings to purchase 147 properties -112 industrial buildings; 19 retails centers; six hotels; two office buildings; and assorted multifamily buildings. GE Real Estate has immediate plans to sell the 19 retail centers to Kimco Realty (NYSE:KIM) for approximately $900 million. The properties are in various locations throughout the US. GE Real Estate's portfolio is currently valued at $44 billion, with holdings in the US and 24 countries around the world.

Timed to coincide with the visit to Washington, D.C. of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, GE Transportation announced a $650 million deal to sell 310 railway locomotives to Kazakhstan for use along the China-Russia rail freight line that has been experiencing tremendous growth in rail traffic, particularly with the development of Kazakhstan's oil fields in the Caspian Sea region. Kazakhstan's GDP is the largest of all Central Asian economies.

Do you have more money than sense? Do you want to be the first to own a stock none of your friends have heard of? A stock so new, so rare, so small even analysts do not follow it? A stock in a company doing business in a part of the world few people can find on the map? Look no further. Just this past week BMB Munai Inc., an oil and gas exploration company doing business on 113,500 acres in western Kazakhstan, qualified to list its shares on the American Stock Exchange under the symbol KAZ. BMB Munai also has oil and gas operations offshore in the Caspian Sea region.

BMB Munai conducts its operations in Kazakhstan through a wholly owned subsidiary, Emir Oil, LLC. BMB Munai hopes to become a major oil and gas producer for Central Asia. Shares began trading on 21 September at $5.60 per share. Shares closed on Friday 22 September at $5.30. Average trading volume for its 2 day trading history is 8,300 shares.