You’ve had the Primary Credit Dealer Facility data — ready yourself for the discount window stuff.
On Thursday the Federal Reserve released some 25,000 documents laying out just who tapped the Fed’s famous overnight facility between August 2007 and March 2010. Now the Fed’s previous $3,300bn data dump, in December, had lots of juicy detail on things like the PDCF and the TAF but it did not include discount window data, supposedly because of the stigma attached to using the thing.
However, Thursday’s discount window reveal has come about because of a Freedom of Information Act request from Bloomberg News. And since this was an FOIA order, not a Dodd-Frank requirement like December’s release, the information is a bit more … how shall we put this? … Difficult to digest?
For a start, the data does not include the collateral accepted by the Fed. And what data there is comes on a CD with individual transactions in non-searchable PDF form. There are currently hundreds of files sat in our specially-created FOIA folder, and at least one of those is almost 8,000 pages long.
So we’ll need some time.
We do, however, have a very quick observation for you.
The day Lehman Bros filed for bankruptcy, on September 15, 2008, outstanding primary, secondary and other credit extensions to the banks from the Fed, appear to have looked like this:
More to come, as we get it.
Related links:
Fed today to name banks that borrowed from discount window – Bloomberg
Fed liquidity in 2008 – everyone was doin’ it – FT Alphaville
Your guide to the Fed’s $3.3 trillion data dump – FT Alphaville