When people start buying stocks with borrowed money at rates not seen since the dot-com bubble, someone usually gets hurt. Deutsche Bank is now waving the yellow flag.
The bank’s credit strategists, led by Steve Caprio, published a warning on July 24 that US margin debt has crossed the $1 trillion mark as of June 2025. That’s not just a round number for headlines. As a share of GDP, margin debt has now surpassed levels seen during the late-1990s tech mania and is closing in on the 2021 all-time high.
The numbers behind the warning
Here’s what caught Deutsche Bank’s attention: NYSE margin debt jumped 18.5% from April to June 2025. That two-month sprint ranks as the fifth-fastest increase since 1998, a period that includes some of the most memorable market blowups in modern history.
Deutsche Bank’s strategists were blunt in their assessment: this level of heightened risk appetite is likely to curtail future market gains.
