The Repo Market’s a Mess. (What’s the Repo Market?)

When plumbing works well, you don’t need to think about it. That’s usually the case with a vital but obscure part of the financial system known as the repo market, where vast amounts of cash and collateral are swapped every day. But when it springs a leak, as it did in mid-September, it rivets the attention of the U.S. Federal Reserve, the nation’s largest banks, money-market funds, corporations and other big investors. It even gets airtime on National Public Radio. The Fed calmed things down by