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.
Latest reading
As of June 2026, Margin Debt (Margin debt YoY %) stands at 49.0% — down from 53.7% 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. Treat extremes as cycle context, not a timing tool. Series history runs from 1997 to present.
Sources, methodology & freshnessLast updated 2026-07-31 · Open ↓Close ↑
Margin debt YoY %
- Margin debt
- $1.50T
- Debt YoY
- 49.0%
- SPY YoY
- 20.9%
- Excess leverage
- +28.1 pp96th pctile
Next release: Third week of next month
Full history
YoY growth
Dollar level
Total debit balances in margin accounts, in billions. The level itself trends with the market — the YoY view is where the signal lives.
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.
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.
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.
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 2026-07-31. Maintained and reviewed by Yuriy Matso; see our methodology for the standards every series on the site is held to.
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. Treat extremes as cycle context, not a timing tool.
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.
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