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This week will be the “pivotal 7 days” in the current credit crisis says Deutsche bank analyst Jim Reid in a note to investors today.

Accordingly, $140bn of commercial paper is due to mature by the end of the week. On Friday, $48bn alone will mature. Compare that to the $100bn of CP which matured at once in mid-August and triggered the current bout of SIV distress.

And again, those SIVs which cannot refinance through the CP market will inevitably be drawing down on their committed credit lines. Of this week’s $140bn, nearly half - $60bn - is from bank conduits. No wonder then, that nerves have been a-jangle on Wall Street and in the City of London.

Ahead of this week, banks like Barclays have been furiously treading water. The bank had committed to provide liquidity lines equal to 25 per cent of senior debt at four SIVs it helped to arrange run by Cairn, Solent, SachsenLB and Avendis. Last week Barclay’s acted fast - restructuing Cairn Capital so it no longer depends on CP issuance and refinancing Solent’s Mainsail II senior debt facility.

Of course, how well larger, more highly leveraged SIVs will weather the coming squall is less than clear. Barclay’s has insisted all this time it’s been positively drowning in liquidity, whatever that might mean, while other banks, with larger SIVs, haven’t said a peep. Of course big Wall Street names - Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley - will all be reporting their Q3 figures next week.

Even without any big SIV collapses, there will still be plenty of unpleasant side-effects from a deeper CP freeze. Widening credit spreads alone will severely stress other markets says Reid:

Financials will continue to be under some pressure and their increasingly bloated balance sheets will not be good news for overall market liquidity. At the moment this is especially hitting financial credit spreads but medium-term we think this will inevitably lead to wider corporate spreads, especially in high-yield as liquidity conditions tighten considerably for these companies.

And all that additional pressure will likely push the contagion much further than it has so far spread, as markets move once more to attempt to reprice risk.

What dire news may emerge from the CP market this week could yet be tempered, however, as equities continue to behave with mercurial disregard for bad news from the debt world. On a wing and a prayer, there’s even talk of a rally ahead of Saturday’s all but inevitable (according to interest rate futures at least) rate cut from the Fed.