Americans might rejoice as fuel prices tumble. But it means catastrophe for Russia. Its stock market is already down 80% this year, and Andrew Snyder says the country faces more economic woes in 2009. That’s why he recommends shorting the Market Vectors Russian ETF (NYSE:RSX).

Plunging crude oil prices and currency weakness are creating a crisis in Russia that makes the US look like a boomtown. Financial turmoil is mounting pressure on the Kremlin, says Andrew Snyder. And the resulting desperation could lead to some interesting profit plays.

Andrew Snyder says Democrat-fearing investors are now looking overseas for profits. Andrew says Eastern Europe is a hotbed of political conflict. But that could end up creating great money-making opportunities in the energy sector.

Keith Fitz-Gerald says the recession that is now inevitable in the US and Eurozone will not necessarily evolve into a worldwide contraction. US influence in the global economy is waning, while China’s is growing rapidly. Keith says countries with high cash reserves and low external debt should bounce back strongest in the long term. And that gives investors a reason to remain “selectively bullish”.

In Argentina – where Contrarian Profits is based – falling commodity prices threaten to open a deep hole in the government’s budget. Martin Hutchinson says the county, and other ‘rebel’ states like Russia and Venezuela, has shown little regard for economic laws in recent years. That’s why all three will find it much harder to recover from this crisis.

Crude oil is now worth less than half its July value. But as central banks and consumers rejoice, socialist oil-exporters like Russia and Venezuela are in “dire straits”. Justice Litle says desperate times could prompt desperate measures from the firebrand leaders of these countries. And this “geopolitical time bomb” could send crude skyrocketing once again.

The Mogambo Guru says the Russian media is on the right track in proposing the reintroduction of gold-backed currency. Bank in the US, the Fed and US Treasury are wasting hundreds of billions of dollars trying to ‘fix’ the financial crisis. This will cause the dollar to lose value over time. And if exporting economies like Russia start to dump the dollar for another currency or gold, the buck will be doomed…

E.On (OTC:EONGY) took a bite out of Gazprom (OTC:OGZPY) today. Germany’s largest utility company just got nearly a quarter of Gazprom’s Yuzhno Russkoye natural gas field. And all it had to do was give back some of the Russian giant’s stock. Not bad.

Emerging markets expert Irwin Greenstein says two news stories circulating in Russia indicate Moscow is getting ready to buy up large amounts of distressed US assets. It could be a good time, too, for American investors to consider buying US stocks at bargain prices.

The turmoil in US stock markets is making all the headlines. But BRIC nations are facing a much deeper crisis in their stock markets.

On Monday, authorities halted trading on Brazil’s Bovespa for 30 minutes after it tumbled 10%. Trading in Russia was frozen on several occasions in the last two weeks to prevent an all-out collapse of the market. And China’s CSI Index has lost 58% of its value so far this year.

Despite recent setbacks, however, Andrew Gordon reckons Brazil is the most likely of the pack to weather the current financial storm