The stock market crash approaches. Margin Debt: all time record in sight for April - Greed peaks just before a stock market crash

A few minutes ago the NYSE released the Margin Debt number for March: $379.5B. This month’s data (April) will be released near the end of May. My estimate for April is for $383B — eclipsing the all-time margin debt peak of $381B in July 2007 – 3 months before the US stock market peaked in October 2007 and began crashing (albeit less than 1% higher than the July peak).

(Margin debt is the amount of money borrowed from brokerages by speculating investors. It is greed in pure form. Margin debt peaks shortly before stock market crashes begin.)

I’ve made no secret of my forecast for the U.S. to join most of the rest of the developed world economies in recession in June; that the US stock market will see a new all-time peak in April-May; and that Margin debt will approach or set a new all time record in April.  We can’t check the box yet on April’s margin debt, but we almost certainly will in 4 week’s time.

 

This is going to have a direct impact on the Greedometer.