You can calculate investors' buying power easily. The New York Stock Exchange reports the total balance of margin debt and free credit for its member organizations (which are basically the organizations that trade on the NYSE floor). You can calculate buying power by subtracting the total margin of debt on the exchange from the total free credit that is in cash accounts and margin accounts.
Investors are sitting on more buying power than any other time in the history of the data set for the past 16 years.
This is one of the reasons I feel the market will bootom soon.

On the metals front how do you all like your metal stocks now?
There is a blow off but it is only the second wave. That means for the long term hang on to your metals for at least another year and a half.