Topic: Daily Advice

Stock market trading strategy: How to tell if you should buy on margin

The term “buying on margin” means that you’re borrowing money from your broker to buy securities. The main cost involved with this stock market trading strategy is interest on the money you borrow. Plus, when you sell a security that you’ve bought on margin, you must first pay back the loan from your broker.

How to build a winning stock market trading strategy using margin

If you could buy on margin when the market hits bottom, stay margined as the market rises, and sell out at the peak, you could very quickly build a large fortune. But of course, no one has the sense of superhuman timing necessary to consistently succeed in that.

That’s why we continue to recommend that if you are going to use margin to invest, it’s all the more important to stick with our three-part stock market trading strategy: mainly invest in well-established companies; spread your money out across the five main economic sectors; and avoid stocks that are in the broker/public relations limelight.

If you rigourously follow that advice and expand your portfolio using margin, you stand to make money over long periods.

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Increased leverage magnifies your profits — and your losses

The main risk of buying on margin is that it increases your leverage. Leverage works two ways: It magnifies your profits when the market moves in your favour, but it magnifies your losses just as effectively when the market moves against you. That’s because the amount you owe on your investment loan stays the same, so every dollar your portfolio loses comes out of your equity.

Tax benefits are a plus when buying on margin

Buying on margin can help you cut your tax bill. That’s because you’ll be able to write off your margin interest in full against ordinary income in the current year. However, you’ll pay less than ordinary income-tax rates on dividends from Canadian stocks, thanks to the dividend tax credit.

Above all, you’ll defer all capital gains taxes until you sell, and only pay taxes on capital gains at half the rate you pay on ordinary income.

3 ways to tell if investing on margin is for you

Here are three things to keep in mind when considering investing on margin. If you meet all three, you may be a good candidate for buying on margin:

  • you are in the top tax bracket and expect that you’ll remain in it for the foreseeable future;
  • you follow our conservative three-part investing approach (see above);
  • you invest consistently over a number of years, and resist the temptation to increase your margin borrowing when stocks have risen, or reduce it when prices have dropped.

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