Margin debt's largest monthly drop on record — with SPY flat
FINRA’s July report, published August 17: margin debt fell $84.8 billion in one month, from June’s record $1.502 trillion to $1.417 trillion. In dollar terms that is the largest monthly decline in the record, which begins in 1997 — ahead of January 2022 (−$80.4 billion), June 2022 (−$69.5 billion) and October 2008 (−$68.2 billion). Each of those three came inside a falling market. This one arrived with SPY flat for the month: investors reduced leverage without being forced to.
In percentage terms the drop is less exceptional — 24 months fell harder relative to their base, because margin debt is far larger today than in 2000 or 2008. And a single FINRA print can reflect reporting effects as well as behavior. The base rates for voluntary deleveraging near market highs, and the tripwires for the next print, are in our margin debt analysis.
FINRA Margin Debt — level, monthly change, growth gap and net free credit, updated on each release
This chart is a frozen capture — the numbers above are as of Jul 2026 (FINRA) and will not update. The live page recomputes daily from the same dataset. A square version of this chart is available for feeds that crop landscape images.
