First his emergency rate cut blew up in his face and now his dud of a bazooka. Before the market got going, officials had already added a 25-day allotment (of bank reserves, of course) on top of the usual overnight and 14-day terms.

Obviously, it wasn't enough; or, more accurately, it wasn't the right thing. Undeterred, Powell's Fed decided at some point during the disastrous morning to just say, screw it, and raise the roof. In a matter of hours, a 3-month (84-day) "repo" auction was announced, conducted, and closed.

The scale of the thing was supposed to wow you and all the suddenly impatient sellers on the NYSE (not intended as much for the repo market, as you'll see). Half a trillion, baby! That's the amount of "liquidity" authorities put up for bidding on this day of days.

Dealers ended up taking in all of $78.4 billion, or about 16% of what was possible. Either things aren't nearly as bad as they seem (literally no one is buying that scenario), or something is wrong in bank reserve-land. Perhaps dealers just don't want them, or maybe they don't have the spare collateral to post for them.