Report: Lehman Taps Fed's Discount Window; Goldman Next?

Updated from 8:53 a.m. EDT

Fresh off better-than-expected earnings reports Tuesday, Lehman BrothersLEH borrowed a small amount from the Federal Reserve's discount window and Goldman SachsGS is soon expected to do the same, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The borrowings are among the first since the central bank opened the discount window to primary dealers last weekend. The Fed's direct-lending mechanism was until then reserved solely for commercial banks and lenders, but the collapse of Bear StearnsBSC, sold to JPMorgan ChaseJPM on Monday for $2 a share, moved the central bank to act.

The Fed has also twice lowered the discount rate since Sunday, to 2.5%.

Opening the discount window to primary dealers like Lehman and Goldman are part of several extraordinary moves the Fed has taken in the intensifying credit crisis to provide liquidity to choked markets. While there has been a stigma attached to borrowing at the window in the past -- the window was viewed as a lender of last resort, thus marking borrowers with a sense of desperation -- investment banks have expressed enthusiasm for the idea.

Goldman CFO David Viniar, in a conference call Tuesday discussing the firm's first quarter results, called the move "a very good thing" that "will help our liquidity as well as the liquidity in the market."

Know What You Own: Lehman Brothers operates in the financial services industry, and some of the other stocks in its field include Citigroup C, Morgan Stanley MS and Merrill Lynch MER. These stocks were recently trading at ($21.12, +1.98%), ($46.02, +7.35%) and ($46.56, -0.15%) respectively. For more on the value of knowing what you own, visit TheStreet.com's Investing A-to-Z section.