– There’s no other story this morning. Three seismic events have shaken Wall Street.

– Struggling brokerage giant Lehman Brothers (NYSE:LEH) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy early this morning after the federales refused to bail it out of trouble. Financial bellwether Merrill Lynch (NYSE:MER) sold itself to Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) for $44 billion. Insurance behemoth AIG (NYSE:AIG) is today scrambling for cash to save its own skin after its stock plummeted by a whopping 31% on Friday. AIG has reportedly asked the Fed to lend it $40 billion.

– You can’t say you weren’t warned. This from Friday’s 5 Min. Forecast:

CEO Dick Fuld is openly shopping around for someone – anyone – to buy the firm before it goes bankrupt. (For what it’s worth, Bank of America is currently the most forecasted suitor.) Like Bear Stearns before it, Lehman’s seemingly imminent failure poses a big systemic risk to the whole stock market, other financials, in particular.

We’re sure Lehman is working with the Treasury and/or the Fed. But this time, a government bailout is far from certain. “People briefed on the matter” told Bloomberg that the Fed and Treasury will assist the sale or teardown of Lehman, but aren’t likely to offer any cash.

Since we’re in the business of making forecasts, and since the government seems to be in the business of bailing out financials over the weekend, we offer you this: The Lehman Brothers you know today probably won’t be the same business on Monday.

–  The feds have responded by broadening the types of assets that investment banks can put up to get emergency loans from the Fed. Bernanke & Co. are also going to double the frequency of its cash auctions to keep liquidity from drying up altogether.

– A group of ten global banks has ponied up a pool of $70 billion. The money will be used as part of a loan programme to cash-strapped financial institutions.

– Wall Street today faces a day of reckoning. US stock futures are pointing to a bruising opening. S&P 500 futures dropped 50 points to 1,208.50. Dow futures plunged 365 points. Nasdaq 100 futures fell 45.5 points to 1,734.00.

– Oil futures plunged $4.47 to below $96.71 a barrel on the news and after news hurricane Ike did less damage to the oil-refining Gulf of Mexico than expected.

– US Treasurys bonds are soaring and yields have sunk as investors seek a safe-haven from the nightmare on Wall Street. The yield on the two-year Treasury note fell below 2%. The yield on the ten-year Treaury note has fallen even further, to 3.49%. The 30-year T-bond yield is 4.17%.

– The currency markets are on the move. The yen is up The Japanese yen, trading closely in line with risk-aversion levels, has shot up by 2.7% against the US dollar. The euro also up against the greenback at $1.4240.