BP (BP) should have seen this one coming. An arbitration tribunal set up by BP's existing Russian partners blocked the $7.8 billion share swap deal proposed by BP with Russia's state-controlled Rosneft. The tribunal was setup at the behest of the Alfa-Access-Renova consortium, which is BP's partners Russia's third-biggest oil producer TNK-BP. BP is the third largest of the six oil and gas "supermajors" after Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Royal Dutch Shell. Other competitors include Chesapeake (CHK), Anadarko and Chevron (CVX).

Our price estimate for BP stands at $49.38, implying a roughly 5% premium to its current market price.

BP's (BP) headache continues over its planned share swap with Russian-owned Rosneft. According to a report from Sky News, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) announced its concerns over the impact of the swap. ABI reportedly controls 10% to 15% of the U.K. stock market.

ABI's reservations also include a Swedish court's decision to block BP's planned venture with Rosneft in the Arctic. Perhaps most concerning of all -- and not just to ABI -- is Wednesday's report announcing that U.S. prosecutors are considering manslaughter charges against BP for its Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Eleven oil workers were killed as a result of the spill.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) cut its estimates of last fall's corn and soybean crops.The soybean harvest was revised sharply downward to 3.33 billion bushels from 3.38 billion. Corn inventories are already at a 15 year low, were cut by more than 10% to 745 million bushels, as reported in theWall Street Journal.

Let's look at what happened around the world to the grain harvests:

The grain markets are highly weather dependent. The slightest whisper of a weather change can move grains by large magnitudes. And with crops in Canada and China in danger of freezing, some grains recorded two-year highs.

Western Canada experienced frost last week, damaging the region's crops, including wheat, canola and barley. Similarly, parts of China also experienced freezing weather, threatening some grain crops there. Meanwhile, in Russia, the severe drought, which caused the country to ban wheat exports, is continuing. Russian farmers have planted 39% less winter grains this year, according to Bloomberg.

In a surprise and unexpected move, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told Reuters that he was extending the grain export ban until 2011. "I would like to note that lifting of the export ban can only be considered after next year's crops have harvested," Putin said according to Reuters.

Russia is now suffering through its worst drought in nearly 100 years. Grain harvest have been cut by two thirds, down to 60-65 million tons from 97 million tons in 2009.

The grain markets are weather related. Any change in the normal growing weather pattern sends the markets into turmoil.

The story of the day is Russia. The farm ministry said that Russia will harvest 85 million metric tons of grain, down 5 million tons from the previous forecast. Why is this news? Russia and Canada vie with the U.S. as the second largest world wheat exporter.

Oil prices have rebounded from yesterday's sell off, despite a larger than expected increase in oil inventories last week.

As we noted yesterday, analysts were expecting to see a 250,000 barrel increase in reserves last week, but the Department of Energy reported today that inventories actually rose by a much greater 2.4 million barrels.

It is mind boggling that Hugo Chavez, the authoritarian President of Venezuela is racing towards a mock socialist political system when the two largest socialist regimes in the world, China and Russia, have done the opposite. Even our long standing communist adversary (now trading partner) Vietnam entered the 21st Century on a capitalist influenced spring loaded economic boom.

BusinessWeek reports in its latest edition that the Chavez government has been taking privately held supermarkets under government control:

In an unusual move, Russia's Finance Ministry sold 30 metric tons of gold to the Russian Central Bank for $1 billion dollars.

A Finance Minister who declined to be identified said the proceeds would be used to ease the crisis in Russia's budget. By way of contradiction, bank representatives said they were unaware of the deal.

Under the radar: Some trends are obvious enough and visible to all investors. Others are more-subtle, but are just as potent, and these often slip 'under the radar.'

Case in point: Russia's oil production rose by about 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 10.01 million bpd in September -- a new monthly record for the nation, Reuters reported Friday, citing Russian Energy Ministry data.

OPEC oil ministers want to see a stable U.S. dollar and higher oil prices before they start to increase investment. OPEC maintains that because oil is priced in U.S. dollars it wants the U.S. to keep the dollar stable.

But these are secondary problems. The main thorn in OPEC's side is Russia. Russia has overtaken Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest oil exporter.

Unlike OPEC that is trying to keep a lid on production, Russia has increased production to a record 10 million barrels per day. Russia and other non OPEC countries were not invited to attend the OPEC meeting.

Brinker International (NYSE: EAT - option chain) stock is falling today after the company announced it has entered into a deal to open 25 Chili's Bar and Grill casual dining restaurants in Russia, starting with the first in late 2010. Traders are not reacting well to this news, but in my opinion a downturn is the best time to consider expansion if you can afford the costs. If you think this stock won't be falling too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged play on EAT.

This morning, EAT opened at $13.85. So far today the stock has hit a low of $13.68 and a high of $13.97. As of 11:35, EAT is trading at $13.80, down 27 cents (-1.9%). The chart for EAT looks neutral and S&P gives EAT a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.

So far this has been a pretty decent earnings season, and soft drink giant PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE: PEP) gets its turn to impress Wall Street tomorrow morning when it releases its second quarter numbers.

The company will be announcing its second quarter earnings before the market opens tomorrow, and analysts are expecting to see earnings of $1.00 a share from the world's second largest beverage maker. For the same period last year PepsiCo posted earnings of $1.03.

Under the radar: Some trends are obvious enough and visible to all investors. Others are more-subtle, but are just as potent, and these often slip 'under the radar.'

Case in point: Lost among President Barack Obama's trip to Russia to meet with president Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, was PepsiCo, Inc.'s (NYSE: PEP) decision to invest $1 billion in Russia over three years, on expectations for retail sales growth in the country.

Why does Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) earn so much money trading equities? The answer lies in a proprietary set of secret codes that Goldman uses when making their trades. In the first quarter of this year Goldman raked in $2 billion dollars from its equity trading and is the leading trader on Wall Street. Even the venerable JPMorgan Chase & Company (NYSE: JPM) only made $1.8 billion.

Now a Russian, named Sergey Aleynikov, who previously worked for Goldman is accused of stealing Goldman"s secret codes. These codes are the property of Goldman and enables them to do high speed and high volume trades in various stock and commodity markets.