With Enron’s stock continuing to sink, panic was taking hold. The immediate problem was that Enron had been unable to roll its commercial paper—the portfolio of unsecured short-term loans that all big companies use to fund their day-to-day needs. Renewing such debt was normally a routine matter. Though the amounts involved were huge (for Enron, about $2 billion), the exposure was so brief (as little as 24 hours) that, for lenders, it was really nothing to worry about—unless they had reason to wonder if the company would survive long enough to pay it back.
