SPDR S&P 500 (SPY)

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NYSE Margin Hits All Time Record

Now we are getting into the uh-oh region:

NYSE Member Firm Margin Levels

Nyse_member_firm_margin

(See our prior discussion on what this may or may not mean here)

Bloomberg News has the details:

The amount of money borrowed from brokerages that do business on the New York Stock Exchange to buy stock rose 3.6 percent to a second straight monthly record, reaching $295.9 billion in February. Margin debt, as the borrowing is called, in January broke the prior high set at the peak of the so-called Internet bubble.

Changes in the level of margin debt have mirrored those of U.S. stock indexes. After setting an all-time high of $278.5 billion in March 2000, margin debt dropped to less than half that amount by September 2002. It reached $285.6 billion in January.

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