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Buying On Margin: Leveraged Investing Ideas To Generate Big Gains In The Markets

“Leverage” means investing with cash that is, at a fixed rate, borrowed in the hopes of earning a greater rate of return. Like the lever, the simple machine for which it is named, leverage lets you use a small amount of cash to exert a lot of financial power. Many companies use leverage, called “trading on equity,” when they make for new bonds and stocks. Their earnings per share may increase because they expand operations with the money raised by bonds. But they must use some of the earnings to repay the interest on the bonds.

Buying on margin is a great way to generate some huge gains off of stock trades, but the downside risk is staggering. Nevertheless, if you want to increase the potential return on any stock investment, making an educated bet with a margin call is one of the best and easiest investing ideas around. You can borrow up to 50% of the total value from your broker. If you can sell the stock at a higher price than it originally cost, you can repay the loan, plus interest and commission, and keep the profit. However, if the stock drops in value, you still have to repay the loan. This means that your losses could be larger than if you had owned the stock outright.

To buy on margin, you set up a margin account with a broker and transfer the required minimum in cash or securities to the account. Then, you can borrow up to 50% of the stock’s price and buy with the combined funds. For example, if you bought 1,000 shares at $10 a share, your total cost would be $10,000. By buying on margin, you put up $5,000 and borrow the remaining $5,000. If you then sell when the stock price rises to $15 you would get $15,000. You then repay the $5,000 borrowed (plus interest) and keep the $10,000 balance. This means that you can grab almost 100-percent profit margins with less money. A virtual profit-making machine if used appropriately and with caution.

Even realizing the upside available, buying on margin can be very risky. For example, the value of the stock you buy could drop so much that you could lose the entire amount you invested and perhaps more. In order to protect brokerage firms from losses, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and NASD, formerly the National Association of Securities Dealers, require that you maintain a margin account balance of at least 25% of the purchase price of and stock you buy long. Sometimes, brokers and investment firms require an even higher margin level, close to 30%, but not a lower one.

If the market value of your investment falls below its required minimum, the firm issues a margin call. At this point, you can add aditional funding to meet the call or sell the stock and take your losses then and there. When the margin call comes, there’s still a cushion of 25% protecting your broker’s share. Because your shares will be automatically sold if you do not act on the margin call, your money is always at risk. In fact, your broker could even sell other stock in your margin account in order to recoup a loss that selling the shares didn’t cover.

Certainly, there are a lot of huge upside and downside gains to be had at the hands of margin accounts. Holding a margin account and trading stocks for profit using borrowed funds could potentially be one of your most impressive investing ideas to date. It’s a sure fire way to run the table with your investments. If you are too heavily leveraged, you need to be aware of panic selling, which often occurs as the overall market declines. That is one reason that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) instituted what is known as Regulation T, which limits the leveraged portion of any margin purchase to 50%. Having money invested by margin can be exciting, but never forget that you have money at risk when you invest.

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