By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 5, 2024 ~ Most market watchers rely on the monthly margin debt figures published by Wall Street’s self-regulator, FINRA, as the reliable gauge in determining how much of securities trading on Wall Street is being done with borrowed money, known as margin debt. According to the FINRA data, as of March 31, 2024, margin debt stood at $784.136 billion. Unfortunately, FINRA only has access to margin debt data filed by the brokerage firms it regulates (also known as brokers and dealers). Thanks to the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, which allowed federally-insured banks to be gobbled up by the trading casinos on Wall Street, the vast bulk of margin debt is now being loaned out not by brokerage firms but by giant banks where the U.S. taxpayer will be on the hook for a bailout if they go belly up from bad … Continue reading A Wall Street Regulator Is Understating Margin Debt by More than $4 Trillion – Because It’s Not Counting Giant Banks Making Margin Loans to Hedge Funds