NYSE Margin Debt Rose to Record Before February Rout (Update2)
By Nick Baker
March 19 (Bloomberg) -- The amount of money borrowed from brokerages that do business on the New York Stock Exchange to buy shares rose to a record last month, when the market suffered its biggest rout since 2003.
Margin debt, as the borrowing is called, rose 3.6 percent in February to a second straight monthly record, reaching $295.9 billion. In January, it broke the prior high set at the peak of the so-called Internet bubble in 2000.
Through margin accounts, investors are able to purchase shares on credit. Margin debt swelled as the Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose every month from June to January, the longest winning streak since 1996. The stock gauge then tumbled 3.5 percent on Feb. 27 for the biggest one-day loss since March 2003.
``The big plunge reacquainted everyone with the notion of risk,'' said Keith Wirtz, who helps oversee $23 billion as chief investment officer at Fifth Third Asset Management in Cincinnati. Margin debt will probably decline, he added. ``We needed to have some scare brought back into the marketplace.''
Changes in the level of margin debt have mirrored the ups and downs 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.
The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average set records in January and March of 2000, respectively. They reached their nadirs on Oct. 9, 2002, by declining 49 percent and 38 percent. The subsequent bull market put the S&P 500 4.6 percent away from a record last month and sent the Dow to an all-time high.
Based on the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Index, the broadest measure of U.S. shares, the value of stocks was $17.9 trillion at the end of March 2000 and $17.8 trillion at the end of last month. Margin debt represented 1.56 percent and 1.66 percent of those figures, respectively, at the end of those months.
NYSE Group Inc.'s New York Stock Exchange, the world's largest stock exchange, released the margin-debt data for February today.
To contact the reporter on this story: Nick Baker in New York at nbaker7@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: March 19, 2007 17:02 EDT
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