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Margin debt at highest level ever

February 4, 2014

I came across the chart below (click here for the website) that I find to be very telling of the current state of the markets. With QE apparently having a smaller and smaller impact but the conventional market continuing to rise there was a piece (or many pieces) missing.

Margin debt levels appear to be a part of it. As you can see in the chart below we are at new highs and only reached there highs back in September. Since setting a new high we have screamed through it. We can not definitively say when this will peak but it is not looking good when it roles over.

Margin debt at all time highs

 Click here for the raw data.

Discussion
24 Comments
    Feb 04, 2014 04:02 PM

    The highest does not necessarily mean it is the top though. More innings to go.

      Feb 04, 2014 04:24 PM

      This is not a Baseball game. It is more like Gladiators fighting to survive, the end can come at any time and without indication.

        Feb 04, 2014 04:00 PM

        You are right Birdman, just because we are at new highs does not mean it can not go higher. I just think having this high of margin in the market is not good and no matter how much higher it goes it will cause a bigger crash. When people are forced to cover their margin bets it turns into a title wave.

      Feb 04, 2014 04:17 PM

      The problem, though, is that on a risk/reward basis it doesn’t pay to overstay the welcome. The record margin debt, the extreme sentiment readings, the insider selling of shares — all provide good anecdotal evidence that bull run is very mature.

      While it could, of course, prove to go higher it is generally better to try to capture the meat of the move and to leave the higher risk play to others.

    Feb 04, 2014 04:05 PM

    Marc Faber….just threw out his middle finger to stocks.

    Feb 04, 2014 04:11 PM

    HeavyHitter, your posts are useless to us unless you cite the source for your supposed information.

      Feb 04, 2014 04:50 PM

      OK..CSF

      Sorry, had no idea you manage the site and enforse your rules.

      PLEASE POST THE “YOUR RULES” ON THE HOME PAGE

      Thank you for your cooperation.

        Feb 04, 2014 04:02 PM

        We appreciate both of you on this site guys. Please continue commenting and making your messages as clear as possible.

    hal
    Feb 04, 2014 04:14 PM

    margin debt a small part-non listed derivatives, spx futures–all part of it.
    and not incl in margin debt although margin debt is nothing to sneeze at

      Feb 04, 2014 04:03 PM

      Tune into this weekend show hal. We will have Chris Martenson on to chat about his thoughts on this topic.

        Feb 04, 2014 04:27 PM

        Nice, Always love to hear from Chris. Good catch, Cory.

    Feb 04, 2014 04:14 PM

    Here is Marc Faber’s most recent statement on cnbc

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/101389404

    hal
    Feb 04, 2014 04:14 PM

    see zh for the faber link

    Feb 04, 2014 04:40 PM

    As usual Jim Sinclair brilliantly states the outlook.
    We all remember when the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s Gideon Gono praised Ben Bernanke for the similarities between his QE monetary policy and Ben’s QE policy of the US Federal Reserve. Recall that Albert Einstein said that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity if you want to predict the outcome of the USD. In hindsight, Mr. Gono acknowledges that while things looked better in the short-term in Zimbabwe for a while, that his QE policies in the end turned out to be brutally disastrous, causing in his country the following ills that his country still has not recovered from 5 years later: frequent power outages, a shortage of skilled labor, a persistent liquidity problem in their banking system, a rapid rise in production costs which killed their manufacturing sector, endemic greed-induced and exploitative renter’s markets, and much more.

    Feb 04, 2014 04:37 PM

    The signal to noise is getting low again on this site; I’m off for awhile.

    Feb 05, 2014 05:29 AM

    HEAVY,,,,,Question= Just what “DONT” you like about CFS ?

      Feb 05, 2014 05:47 AM

      His false accusations against me and personal attacks.

      Not only that the man is persistent with his Mr. Wonderful characteristics.

      So please, if we can drop the subject before something else happens.

      My haitus…is next soon.