I got this chart ( without the annotations, which are mine) courtesy the Absolute Return letter, see www.arpllp.com  ; it is from Haver Analytics. This chart also begs the question, What bear market?.  This is in millions of dollars in the US of A, so we are at about 300bln dollars in margin borrowings. Not that far from the peak! In the mean time there are many ETFs that are leveraged 2 or 3x where no margin is required for the individual investor in order to accomplish the same.

Most interesting is the structure of the rebound from the lows; very clearly an A-B-C back up, a 3-wave affair and consequently corrective implying that the main trend is still down. The 07/08 drop could be wither 5-waves or an a-b-c for wave A down. the first would indicate that we are in a zig-zag, whereas the latter would indicate a “flat” Flats allow , as the word suggests, a flatter resolution so the B would probable be somewhat higher than shown. The zig-zag on the other hand should drop hard and well below the previous low. At the very least one would expect a drop to what is probable a wave 4 of previous degree at  around 125 bln. Either way things do not look too good.

By the way, E-wave is predicated on freely operating markets with a multitude of participants. If this premise does not apply, as in if there is a plunge-protection-team fooling around in the stock markets, the applicability is reduced, perhaps entirely. Crazy things happen that are not always rational. In Canada we have employees of the Post Office going on strike starting in Winnipeg, a rolling country-wide strike supposedly. The Post Office is shrinking at the rate of almost 20% every 5 years or so and is already irrelevant. Moreover,  there are literally millions who would  love to work for $19/hour +++++.If sanity can be suspended so easily, why not EW?.