Economy
Related: About this forumNear-Record NYSE Margin Debt Leads to Caution: Chart of the Day
Borrowing to buy U.S. stocks is close enough to a record to cause concern that prices may not rise much longer, according to Cullen Roche, founder of Orcam Financial Group LLC.
The CHART OF THE DAY compares the total amount of margin debt at New York Stock Exchange member firms, according to data compiled by the exchange, with the performance of the Standard & Poors 500 Index.
Margin debt amounted to $379.5 billion in March, the latest month available. The total was the second-highest in the history of the NYSEs figures, going back to 1959. The highest was the $381.4 billion recorded in July 2007.
Its rather alarming to see NYSE margin debt just shy of its all-time high, Roche wrote yesterday in a posting on his Pragmatic Capitalism blog. The borrowing points to a fragile foundation for the current advance in stocks, he wrote.
The 2007 record was set three months before the end of a five-year bull market, which sent the S&P 500 to an all-time high. The index surpassed its peak five weeks ago, after more than doubling from its March 2009 low, and later closed as much as 2.1 percent higher.
MORE... (See source for Chart. Not able to post)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-02/near-record-nyse-margin-debt-leads-to-caution-chart-of-the-day.html
elleng
(130,126 posts)'The total was the second-highest in the history of the NYSEs figures, going back to 1959. The highest was the $381.4 billion recorded in July 2007.'
mbperrin
(7,672 posts)Huh?
pscot
(21,023 posts)can bucket shops be far behind? Amazing congruence in those charts.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Purveyor
(29,876 posts)printing press.
progree
(10,864 posts)Everyone knows to be suspicious when somebody touts some record in billions of dollars. EVERYTHING IS AT OR NEAR RECORDS PRACTICALLY ALL THE TIME WHEN EXPRESSED IN CURRENT DOLLARS. SO IS GDP. SO IS MARKET CAPITALIZATION.
Source of GDP figures: http://www.bea.gov/national/xls/gdplev.xls