The Margin Debt Bubble

If you've ever traded on margin before, then you've probably experienced the rush that's associated with buying more stocks than what your own cash can afford and watching that number move up or move down faster than it would if you had used your own cash. I hope this isn't you, but many people have also experienced a margin call, where you buy something with borrowed money and then that stock starts to collapse. Broker gives you a call to sell, deposit more cash, otherwise they're going to sell it for you. And the stock market has always moved up and down on these trends of margin. Because many of the players in the stock market lever up, which pushes prices up. But it will get to a point where that movement up stops happening, selling starts, and then the price starts to drop, which forces liquidation across the board, driving down prices even more. So, if you can watch the trend of the margin debt level building up and dropping, you can potentially front run this and be able to profit off of getting into a leveraged position ahead of the curve and getting out of it before the pop! Today we're going to look at the current state of margin debt across the stock market to provide you some insight on whether today is a good day to get into more leverage or to get out of leverage.