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To: Boplicity who wrote (3164)	7/29/2000 12:47:05 AM
From: allen menglin chen	Respond to of 13572

A Look At Margin Debt 7/17/2000 12:24:52 PM One of the battle cries from the bears' camp has been about the rise of margin debt. The bears continue to trot out to the investing community that the sky is falling because speculation, as measured by margin debt, is reaching unprecedented levels. For those who are unfamiliar with this measure, margin debt is the amount of funds that is borrowed by the investing community to finance the purchase of securities. On the surface, it does appear that rising margin debt would be a sign of excessive optimism, as investors are leveraging themselves to take advantage of a "hot" stock market. Unfortunately, the bears are not presenting all of the facts on margin debt. The current absolute level of margin debt stands at $247.2 billion, which is slightly off the highs made in March when it stood at $278.53 billion. On a historical basis, these figures are the highest they have ever been. Yes, this is a concern, but looking at this data relative to market capitalization of the NYSE and Nasdaq, these figures pale into comparison to the ratio prior to the 1929 crash when it approached 30 percent. The current reading of margin debt as a percent of total market capitalization comes in around 1.4 percent, which is the lowest this figure has been since December. Moreover, this figure has not breached the two-percent mark in over a decade (see the chart below). Chart courtesy of Financial Mail with data source from Warburg Dillon Read As long as the market maintains support along long-term moving averages and the bears continue to throw out poor arguments such as margin debt levels to describe the investing community's "irrational exuberance," we will continue to be long-term bullish. - Joseph W. Sunderman (jsunderman@sir-inc.com) =============================================== Original page, with a nice chart. Wow, actually the margin debt was almost 90% of March peak when NAZ hit the 7/17 peak. Looks like those guys never learn a big lesson. We should email Joseph above to see if he has a daily link. schaeffersresearch.com =============================================== I'm seaching thru YHOO, and see if i can get a daily chart site... google.yahoo.com

To: Boplicity who wrote (3164)	7/29/2000 5:11:36 AM
From: D.B. Cooper	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13572

marketvector.com this is the best site I can find