All eyes are on Lehman Brothers tanking with its shares falling nearly 10 per cent on speculation that the company intended to raise $4 billion in fresh capital and word that it's about to report its first quarterly loss since going public 14 years ago.

For its part, Lehman Brothers has denied it's gone to the Fed for help and it claims its books are liquid. But investors aren't listening. CNBC Editor, Charles Gasparino warns that Lehman might not be around in a years' time.

Needly to say, the performance of Lehman has dragged US stocks down. Investors are nervous about the exposures in the financial services sector.

What that means is that US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke will be watching Lehman very closely. The last thing he would want would be a repeat of what happened to Bear Stearns, prompting the rescue of that firm back in March.

Bernanke has come out with the warning that the weak dollar is causing inflation.

So what he's doing is trying to stabilize the dollar when the markets are jumpy about the performance of financial stocks. Now that is a two-step worth watching!