Leverage is a term used in investment circles to explain a type of borrowing. Its investment jargon, so it may sound complex. Its simply describes the process of borrowing to invest, where there is some kind of security underpinning the borrowing. This could be a house in a property loan, or stocks in a margin loan.

This article is all about the risks and rewards of borrowing to invest, or leveraging investment strategies. The information is general in nature and not intended as specific advice. As always, if you intend borrowing to invest, seek licensed financial advice before you do.

Before I understood money, my debt profile looked very similar to most peoples. I had a credit card which I always struggled to get back to zero, I had a large personal loan for a car I bought and a smaller loan for some furniture.

There are 2 problems with this type of borrowing. Firstly, all the assets I bought with the borrowed money were depreciating assets. This means that as I paid off the debt, the value of the things I bought decreased. Secondly, as I purchased “consumables”, the interest I paid on these loans was not tax deductible. This makes for a very expensive borrowing.

My debt profile today is very different to the one I had when I started learning about money. Today I use my credit card merely as a float which I pay off each month and all my personal loans are paid off. Despite this I carry much more debt than I did back then. I have a massive debt on a rental property I purchased. I have a reasonable sized margin loan for stock trading and I have an ever growing FOREX trading account. Most of my debt now funds investments, practically no debt funds consumables.

What is the logic then of borrowing to invest?

Firstly, when you borrow to invest, you are “using other people’s money” to earn more money in the investment markets. A great example of this is in our FX Trading strategy. If I invest $10,000.00 and leverage it out at 400:1 that means I have $4,000,000 invested. This above example describes very well the first benefit of leverage. By accessing more money to invest, you can earn way higher returns on your investments than you otherwise would have been able to.

Generally speaking also, interest payments on investment borrowing are tax deductible (get advice from your accountant on this point). As the borrowings have been made to increase your income, the interest payments on the loans are a direct cost of your income production. This typically makes the interest payments a tax deduction. For example, as my investment property creates a rental income, the borrowing are a cost associated with producing that rental income.

Margin loans work similarly. Basically I buy a bunch of stocks, fund 50% of the purchases myself and borrow the other 50% in a margin loan. This means I can double the size of my share portfolio and hopefully make a lot more money. Because I borrowed money though to buy the stocks which will make me money, the interest accrued in the margin loan is tax deductible.

So there are definite advantages you can gain from leveraging your investments. There are risks also though, which is why you should seek proper financial advice prior to moving down this path.

So what are the risks associated with borrowing for investment purposes? One of the obvious risks relates to your financial capacity. There is the risk you over-extend yourself and cannot meet the repayment obligations on your loans. When taking out a loan, you need to be sure you can pay the loan repayments.

In a margin loan situation, it is a little different. If you borrow too much here, you may breach the allowable % of assets to debt you are given and if this happens, you will be expected to put more money in to put the loan back in “good order”. This can be quite difficult if the market swings strongly against you. So you need to know that in extremely adverse market conditions (2007 – 2009 are a good example of this) you can generate enough income to cover such margin calls.

There is alway also the possibility that your trading strategy loses money. If this happens, because you borrowed so you could invest more, you lose more money.

There are strategies to protect yourself against these risks though which your financial advisor can help you with. In my experience, it is definitely worthwhile borrowing to invest, but only if you manage your risk and cashflow responsibilities properly. So the one piece of specific advice I will give you here, is speak to a licensed financial advisor or accountant about whether this is an appropriate strategy for you. Only then should you work out how to structure it to match your personal circumstances.

Gnifrus Urquart has enjoyed impressive success investing over the years. As such, he enjoys discussing investment strategies and offering trading tips to anyone who enjoys investing Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service