On the 23rd March I warned about the dangers of the rise in speculation among small retail investors. I said this: “I suggest that buying shares on margin should be accompanied by very strong health warnings to investors and tougher regulations. It was one of the reasons for the collapse of the US stock market in the 1930s. Too many folks geared up with broker loans that were unsupportable when the market headed down. Investors were unable to meet margin calls, and the lenders then went bust”.
But this is also a problem among larger investors. Today the FT reported that Credit Suisse and Nomura – two of the world’s largest banks – faced large losses after their client Archegos Capital Management, for whom they acted as prime broker, failed to meet margin calls.
Nomura said it estimated that its claim against the client might be $2 Billion or more if asset prices continued to fall. The share price of Nomura fell by 16% as these events might wipe out its second half profits. The losses at Credit Suisse might be even higher at between $3 Billion and $4 Billion it is suggested in the FT article.
Archegos, an investment company, has been dumping shares after sharp declines in ViacomCBS and Chinese technology stocks.
The problem is that whenever a few big players become over-leveraged their failure can have the effect of falling dominoes as they trigger the collapse of other players. Even if the lenders don’t fail, the sales of holdings when margin calls are not met depresses the share prices of those holdings. In summary there are too many people betting on rising markets and trading on margin. Financial market regulators seem to have taken no notice of the growing risks attendant on this structure.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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