Leverage in Investment

Source: KCLAU.COM

Leverage means The use of credit or borrowed funds to improve one’s speculative capacity and increase the rate of return from an investment, as in buying securities on margin.

Investing is already a high risk activity, according to those not used to do investment. If to use leverage in our investment, it means the risk involved is even higher. But only with the proper use of leverage, a person can grow rich even faster. We must have heard that most wealthy people actually had gone through some difficult years prior to their success. Normally, they are able to double their income every year after those initial struggle. They certainly use some form of leverage. Example:

1. Buying property with bank’s money. In order to own a RM100,000 real property, we only need to pay 10% down payment of RM10,000 for residential property. When the property appreciate to RM110,000, we made a gain of RM10,000, which is a 100% return from our initial RM10,000.

2. Buying warrant instead of it’s mother share. Warrant itself is a form of leverage. When the share price rises 10 sen, the warrant will normally follow by 10 sen as well. Those who bought warrants know that warrant is a derivative security that gives the holder the right to purchase securities (usually equity) from the issuer at a specific price within a certain time frame.

3. Borrowing money to do business. That’s how entrepreneurs are able to build their wealth in a short period of time ( 3-5 years). They use the bank’s money by paying them 4-9% interest, but are able to produce more than 20% return per annum in their business.

If we can learn the art of using leverage, we will be able to grow our wealth much faster!