FINRA Margin Debt
FINRA Margin Debt is the total amount investors have borrowed against the securities in their margin accounts at member broker-dealers, reported monthly under FINRA Rule 4521. It is the cleanest read on how much leverage is riding on the equity market.
FINRA margin debt (still widely searched as “NYSE margin debt”) is the total investors have borrowed against securities in margin accounts at member broker-dealers, reported monthly under FINRA Rule 4521.
Leverage expanding faster than market — the dollar level sets records routinely; the three relative reads below are where the signal lives, each as a percentile of its own 1997+ history.
Bars are percentiles of the full history — 100 = the most leveraged on record. Each report describes borrowing from ~5–7 weeks earlier; the next lands around the third week of October 2026.
Latest reading
As of August 2026, FINRA margin debt is $1.45T — 3.2% below the June 2026 record of $1.50T. As of August 2026, Margin Debt (Margin debt) stands at $1.45T — up from $1.42T the prior reading. The dollar level rises with the market, so the signal is in the rate of change. Margin debt growing far faster than stocks — high "excess leverage" (margin-debt YoY minus S&P 500 YoY) — has marked late-cycle exuberance before the 2000, 2007, and 2021 peaks, while sharp contractions accompany forced deleveraging in selloffs. Extremes are cycle context. They do not time entries or exits. Series history runs from 1997 to present.
Sources, methodology & freshnessLast updated 2026-09-15 · Open ↓Close ↑
Full history
Dollar level
Debt as % of GDP
Margin debt as a share of nominal GDP (quarterly Z.1/BEA, joined as-of each month). Scales borrowing by the economy that ultimately backs it — the 2000 peak was ~3.0%, 2021 ~3.8%.
Debt as % of market cap
Margin debt as a share of total public equity market value (quarterly Z.1, joined as-of each month). The counterweight to the GDP view: scaled by the market itself, today sits below the 2007 high — the two denominators genuinely disagree.
Debt as % of M2
Margin debt as a share of the M2 money supply — how much of the economy’s spendable money is borrowed against portfolios. Normalizes the dollar level for monetary growth across decades.
Monthly change
The month-over-month change in margin debt in dollars — the flow behind the level. Deleveraging shows up here first: July 2026’s −$85B was the largest one-month drop in the record, ahead of January 2022 (−$80B), June 2022 (−$69B) and October 2008 (−$68B), and the first of that size to arrive with SPY flat for the month.
YoY growth
The 12-month growth rate of margin debt. The dollar level trends with the market, so the rate of change is where the signal lives — surges above ~50% appeared only in the run-ups to 2000, 2007, 2021 and 2026.
Debt / SPY
Margin debt divided by the month-end SPY price. A rising ratio means leverage is growing faster than the market itself — the late-cycle pattern of 2000, 2007 and 2021.
Excess leverage
Margin-debt YoY minus SPY YoY, in percentage points. Sustained readings above +20 marked the late stages of the 2000, 2007 and 2021 cycles; deep negatives mark forced deleveraging.
Net free credit
Cash sitting in accounts (free credit balances) minus margin debt, in billions. Below zero, investors in aggregate owe more than the cash they hold at brokers — a thin cushion is the fuel for forced selling when margin calls arrive.
Methodology & data
Margin Debt is sourced from FINRA directly (FINRA margin statistics (margin-statistics.xlsx), monthly). We pull the complete history, chart it on a monthly basis, overlay SPY for context, and generate a dated plain-English reading from the latest release — with no smoothing or adjustment beyond what the chart legend states.
Every reading is stamped with its release date, last updated 2026-09-15. Maintained and reviewed by Yuriy Matso; see our methodology for the standards every series on the site is held to.
The Manual — margin debt
Margin debt stands at $1.45T in the August 2026 report, up 37% in a year — growth that fast has appeared in 38 of 344 months on record, every earlier cluster inside the run-up to the 2000, 2007 or 2021 peaks. The full owner's guide covers what the number actually measures, the record net free credit read, the three famous episodes with charts, and the specific ways this gauge will mislead you.
Read The Margin Debt Manual →Frequently asked questions
What is the FINRA Margin Debt?
FINRA Margin Debt is the total amount investors have borrowed against the securities in their margin accounts at member broker-dealers, reported monthly under FINRA Rule 4521. It is the cleanest read on how much leverage is riding on the equity market.
How do you read Margin Debt?
The dollar level rises with the market, so the signal is in the rate of change. Margin debt growing far faster than stocks — high "excess leverage" (margin-debt YoY minus S&P 500 YoY) — has marked late-cycle exuberance before the 2000, 2007, and 2021 peaks, while sharp contractions accompany forced deleveraging in selloffs. Extremes are cycle context. They do not time entries or exits.
Where does the Margin Debt data come from?
FINRA margin statistics (margin-statistics.xlsx), monthly. We chart the full history and publish a dated, plain-English reading with every release; the raw series is downloadable as CSV at /data/indicators/margin-debt.csv.
How often is Margin Debt updated?
Margin Debt is a monthly series from FINRA, refreshed here as soon as a new release posts.
FINRA margin debt (still widely searched as “NYSE margin debt”) is the total investors have borrowed against securities in margin accounts at member broker-dealers, reported monthly under FINRA Rule 4521.
Leverage expanding faster than market — the dollar level sets records routinely; the three relative reads below are where the signal lives, each as a percentile of its own 1997+ history.
Bars are percentiles of the full history — 100 = the most leveraged on record. Each report describes borrowing from ~5–7 weeks earlier; the next lands around the third week of October 2026.