munKNEE.com Your Key to Making Money
Margin debt – the amount of money that individuals and institutions borrow against their stock holdings – spiked…[by 9.6% last November and another 7.8% in December which were] the two largest month-over-month increases on record…[and is now up 62% since March of 2020 and] high margin balances tend to precede epic stock market sell-offs, as annotated in the chart below.
On a year-over-year basis, margin debt surged by nearly $200 billion in December, by far the most ever:
Stock market leverage is an accelerator.
- When stocks already rise, and investors feel confident, they borrow money to buy more stocks, and they can borrow more against their stocks because their value has risen. This additional borrowed money is then chasing after stocks and thereby creating more buying pressure, and prices surge further.
- Stock market leverage is also an accelerator on the way down, when stock prices are already falling and brokers issue margin calls to their clients that then have to sell stocks to remain compliant, triggering a bout of forced selling…
Everything is getting chased higher by speculators who are totally indifferent to valuations, who focus only on the fact that others are chasing these things higher, and valuations are irrelevant, and some of this chasing is happening with borrowed money, from regular margin debt all the way to borrowing against the home or credit cards. That’s what this surge in margin debt tells us.
Conclusion
It has gotten crazy out there.
Editor’s Note: The original article by Wolf Richter has been edited ([ ]) and abridged (…) above for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. The authors’ views and conclusions are unaltered and no personal comments have been included to maintain the integrity of the original article. Furthermore, the views, conclusions and any recommendations offered in this article are not to be construed as an endorsement of such by the editor. Also note that this complete paragraph must be included in any re-posting to avoid copyright infringement.
Related Articles From the munKNEE Vault:
1. 6 Things You Need to Know About Buying on Margin (+3K Views)
Buying on margin can mean potentially higher returns – but it can also lead to large losses very fast. [This article outlines 6 things to know about buying on margin and 3 key risks of doing so.] Words: 848
2. Margin Debt: It Doesn’t Matter ’til It Matters! Is Now the Time to Be Worried About the S&P 500?
It doesn’t matter until it matters! IF margin debt should start decreasing swiftly, history would suggest something different is taking place in the mind of aggressive investors. Will a decline in margin debt from all-time highs matter this time?
3. No Problems Foreseen – Yet – from Sky Rocketing Margin Debt BUT
Is the latest credit-balance trough a definitive warning for U.S. equities? In this article we examine the numbers and study the relationship between margin debt and the market, using the S&P 500 as the surrogate for the latter.
4. Correlation of Margin Debt to GDP Suggests Stock Market Has More Room to Run
Are stocks in a bubble? While leverage has returned to the stock market driving up stock prices and aggregate demand in the process, margin debt is still shy of its all-time high as a percentage of GDP, so there is certainly some headroom for further rises. A look at the following 5 charts illustrate that contention quite clearly.
5. Level of Investor Margin Suggest Its Time to Lower Stock Exposure
Some times in history, investors feel so confident about the future of stocks, they actually use up all their available cash and then borrow money to invest in the stock market. Now is one of those times – and it suggests that now is the time to lower one’s stock exposure. Here’s why.
4. The 3 Risks of Buying on Margin
Buying on margin can mean potentially higher returns – but it can also lead to large losses very fast. [This article outlines 6 things to know about buying on margin and 3 key risks of doing so.] Words: 848 Read More »
A Few Last Words:
- Click the “Like” button at the top of the page if you found this article a worthwhile read as this will help us provide more articles of interest to you.
- Comment below to share your opinion or perspective with other readers and possibly exchange views with them.
- Register to receive our free Market Intelligence Report newsletter (sample here) in the top right hand corner of this page.
- Join us on Facebook to be automatically advised of the latest articles posted and to comment on any of them.
munKNEE should be in everybody’s inbox and MONEY in everybody’s wallet!
