All eyes and ears are on the Fed this week. With Bernanke in New York discussing potential new bubbles and the New York Fed getting heat for overpaying AIG’s many creditors, investors are having a tough time knowing exactly who to follow.

For those of you who hold up the “Fire the Fed” signs, move over. I am thinking about joining your camp.

Pandora’s Box of rate hikes is opened! Is the dollar being removed from oil trades? Deficits do matter, eh? Gold heads toward its all-time high…And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Naturally, at the focus of renewed market pessimism is a struggling financial: CIT Group. (NYSE:CIT) The company — a hundred-year-old staple of small/medium business lending — is no stranger to walking the credit tightrope. They narrowly averted fiscal meltdown late last year with $2.3 billion in TARP bucks… then again in July by goosing bondholders with a $3 billion a debt-to-equity deal. Back then we joked, “Look for this crisis to repeat in a couple weeks.” We were wrong… it took a couple months.

Kenneth D. Lewis There are many ways to view Kenneth Lewis’ eight-year reign as Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) chief executive, but two seem to hold the most landscape.

The U.S. stock market has run up magnificently in the last six months. The U.S. economy has begun to recover, but its performance has fallen short of expectations.

The dark cloud of commercial real estate loan defaults is inching closer, threatening to shutter more banks, even as the U.S. Federal Reserve declares the recession to be over.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) Chief Executive Officer John Mack will step down and be replaced by Co-President James Gorman, who has been running the company’s brokerage and overseeing its merger with Citigroup Inc.’s (NYSE: C) Smith Barney unit.

The U.S. government is starting to see profits from the $750 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), started last year to thwart the financial crisis.

A strong currency move Monday… RBA leaves rates unchanged…And moves bias to neutral…Central Bank warnings have no teeth! And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

TARP May Cost Taxpayers $23.7 Trillion; Economists: Recession Not Over Yet; GM Gets 3 Bids for Opel; Defaults on Commercial Real Estate Hit 20-year High; Drug Company’s Stock Rises 276.81% After Successful Test; Porsche/Volkswagen Deal On Hold For Now; LEI Rises Again; AOL CEO to Revamp Advertising, Develop Community Sites…