Looking at this chart, a thought flashes through my mind.

This is not just a market decline, nor just some bad news. It’s a signal that the entire operational mechanism is starting to stall.

What does the chart reflect? The trend in overnight repurchase agreement (repo) scale. Simply put: to prevent the banking system from collapsing overnight, how much emergency liquidity the Federal Reserve needs to inject.

A few details can illustrate the issue.

**In the long run**, this line has approached zero before. The system can operate on its own. Funds circulate normally in the market, financial institutions trust each other, and refinancing can be resolved through market forces. There’s no need for the central bank to intervene.

**But what about later?** The chart shows several alarming vertical lines. It’s not a slow climb, not a trend. It’s a sudden spike—$20 billion, $30 billion, even over $70 billion in a single night.

This isn’t "liquidity injection." It’s firefighting.

What does this situation usually indicate?

First, some large institutions’ assets and liabilities are starting to become unbalanced.

Second, some market participants cannot complete financing through normal channels.

Third, risk appetite in the market is declining.

Fourth, the creditworthiness among participants is weakening.

At this point, the Federal Reserve has to step in as the "ultimate counterparty" to pull the system back from the edge.

**To clarify**: overnight repos are not the same as QE. The latter is a long-term asset purchase plan by the central bank; the former is just an emergency measure to prevent system collapse at a specific moment.

But if such emergency needs become more frequent and the scale continues to grow? That itself is already a symptom.

Looking back at history, these phenomena often occur in several situations:

— End of tightening cycles
— Periods of credit market stress
— The eve of policy shifts or market volatility

This raises a core question. Rather than being about this chart alone, it’s about the entire macro landscape.

If the economic fundamentals are "strong enough," interest rates stay high, and inflation is under control, then the question is:

**Why does the system still need to rely on nightly emergency injections now and then to survive?**

In my view, this is not a sign of strength, but an accumulation of internal pressure.

On the surface, everything seems calm; but secretly, leaks are already forming. The market usually pretends not to see these signals and continues operating as usual. Until one day, it suddenly turns around and revalues everything.