Margin and short balances by year
Market-wide margin financing and short-selling balances, averaged and peaked by year — how much borrowed money and borrowed stock sat in the market.
- as_of
- 2026-09-02
- Sample period
- 2001-01-02 → 2026-09-02
- Rows
- 26
Methodology
Every trading day, the margin balances and the short balances of the whole market are summed. The year's figures are the average and the highest of those daily totals.
Yearly figures from 2001. Balances are stock, not flow: they say how much was outstanding, not how much was borrowed or repaid during the year.
What this means, and how to use it
Margin balance is the market's appetite for leverage and short balance is the appetite to bet against it, so the two together are a rough gauge of positioning. Peaks matter more than averages here: a peak is where leverage was most crowded, and crowded leverage is what forced selling comes from. History, not a forecast.
Average margin balance by year
Margin only. Short balances are roughly two orders of magnitude smaller, so drawing both on one axis would flatten the short line onto zero and show nothing.
Data
Download CSV| Year | Margin, average | Margin, peak | Short, average | Short, peak | Trading days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 12,027,870 | 14,749,588 | 561,740 | 1,139,063 | 240 |
| 2002 | 14,795,518 | 16,618,866 | 908,318 | 1,542,639 | 240 |
| 2003 | 17,526,943 | 20,084,779 | 1,096,737 | 1,975,246 | 247 |
| 2004 | 20,935,570 | 23,215,936 | 1,003,612 | 1,503,352 | 243 |
| 2005 | 17,525,956 | 20,885,722 | 828,809 | 1,467,728 | 238 |
| 2006 | 15,982,580 | 17,614,068 | 658,996 | 1,109,378 | 240 |
| 2007 | 17,724,907 | 20,112,684 | 655,486 | 955,495 | 240 |
| 2008 | 15,492,285 | 19,064,994 | 413,997 | 674,181 | 246 |
| 2009 | 14,086,949 | 15,602,545 | 760,148 | 993,332 | 246 |
| 2010 | 15,291,957 | 17,170,718 | 555,466 | 858,353 | 249 |
| 2011 | 17,260,343 | 20,917,793 | 564,120 | 816,612 | 247 |
| 2012 | 13,580,551 | 14,936,476 | 655,602 | 988,305 | 248 |
| 2013 | 13,324,999 | 14,434,821 | 579,200 | 1,038,335 | 244 |
| 2014 | 14,590,822 | 15,278,809 | 539,477 | 787,833 | 248 |
| 2015 | 12,925,533 | 15,221,037 | 558,403 | 756,401 | 246 |
| 2016 | 10,793,649 | 11,605,999 | 528,641 | 689,498 | 244 |
| 2017 | 11,070,436 | 12,092,227 | 567,596 | 819,622 | 243 |
| 2018 | 10,745,310 | 12,172,686 | 555,016 | 804,113 | 245 |
| 2019 | 8,988,338 | 9,499,980 | 677,930 | 964,566 | 242 |
| 2020 | 8,468,769 | 10,686,991 | 869,083 | 1,292,208 | 245 |
| 2021 | 10,906,242 | 12,250,148 | 685,538 | 1,259,708 | 244 |
| 2022 | 9,484,612 | 11,360,266 | 621,447 | 801,936 | 246 |
| 2023 | 9,146,050 | 10,132,521 | 431,354 | 747,256 | 239 |
| 2024 | 11,107,460 | 12,176,921 | 343,407 | 477,031 | 242 |
| 2025 | 9,385,728 | 11,236,848 | 355,598 | 467,055 | 243 |
| 2026 | 9,950,288 | 11,770,413 | 249,901 | 424,919 | 161 |
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