WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 — Wall Street thinks the Federal Reserve is running short of time.

After another day of restless anxiety in the world’s credit markets, most lenders and investors remained fearful of all but the very safest Treasury securities, and new figures showed that the rate of foreclosures in the housing market in July was almost double that of a year ago.

Analysts now say that the central bank’s move last Friday to restore confidence by encouraging banks to borrow directly from the Fed at a lower cost has had only limited impact so far and that the Fed will need to take more drastic action by cutting its benchmark interest rate soon if it fails to see more progress.

“I would calibrate it in days, not weeks,” said Richard Berner, chief United States economist at Morgan Stanley. “If the money markets are still in disarray a few days from now, I would think the Fed is going to have to take additional steps.”

But the central bank’s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, and most other Fed policy makers are extremely reluctant to have the Fed jump to the rescue with an interest rate cut simply to relieve the woes of investors on Wall Street or to bail out hedge funds and others that many blame for the current problems caused by excessive investment in risky mortgages. Instead, the Fed is much more closely watching for clues to whether the housing market itself and consumer spending are weakening before deciding that it needs to cut interest rates.