Really Scary Fed Charts About to Get Crazy Scary

“This could be the mother of year-ends. The markets will need extraordinary actions to get through it.” –Brian Sack, Macroeconomic Advisers

“If banks are unwilling to lend to other banks, then they are unwilling to lend to you and me.” –Stan Jonas, Axiom Management Partners

Once a month I update and add to a regular series of posts I call Really Scary Fed Charts.

Although I won’t update the charts until September 15th when the data comes out, I can tell you right now that going forward these charts are about to go from just “really scary”, to “crazy scary”.

Fed May Expand Funding Aid to Banks in a ‘Mother of Year-Ends’: “The Federal Reserve may have to increase the cash it provides to banks and brokers, already a record, to help them balance their books at the end of the year.

Six bank failures in the past two months and rising concern about Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s capital levels pushed lenders' borrowing costs to near a four-month high yesterday. They may climb further as companies rush for cash to settle trades and buttress their balance sheets at year-end.

One option is for banks and brokers to increase the loans they take out directly with the Fed; the central bank reports on the figures today. Officials could also offer options on its biweekly loan auctions or introduce special repurchase agreements to straddle the end of the year, economists said.”

Already about half the $800 billion Federal Reserve balance sheet is spoken for through the alphabet soup of liquidity facilities: TAF, TSLF, and PDCF. The Fed is fast running out of options and money.

This year, the Grinch almost certainly will steal Christmas...

The Really Scary Fed Charts Series:
1) Really Scary Fed Charts, Why Bernanke Will Furiously Cut
2) Fed CHANGES Really Scary Fed Charts
3) Really Scary Fed Charts: MARCH
4) Really Scary Fed Charts: APRIL
5) Really Scary Fed Charts: MAY, False Alarm?
6) Really Scary Fed Charts: JUNE, ‘Just’ 1% of GDP Now
7) Really Scary Fed Charts: JULY, More of the Same