Panic Grips the Repo Market!: An Explainer

Breaking the Dollar

What is the repo market? In this episode of Breaking the Dollar, host Everett Millman explains how and why the Federal Reserve was forced to intervene in the repo market, a part of the financial system's interbank funding markets. He connects the Fed's repo operations to the broader notion that central banks will increasingly attempt to accommodate and stimulate financial markets as signs that we are late in the current economic cycle begin to multiply. However, this doesn't address underlying structural problems in the financial system.