"Leverage" means investing with money borrowed at a fixed rate of interest 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 profit in order to repay the original loan plus interest.

Buying on margin is a great way to be able to increase your potential 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 are able to use up to fifty-percent of the stock's price to buy with your funding. 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. That’s almost a 100% profit versus the 50% you would have gotten from a standard buy. 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. As a measure to protect consumers and investing firms from downside 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.

In the event that the value of your trade falls below the required price floor, the firm issues a margin call. You must either meet the call by adding money to your account to bring it up to the required minimum 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, you are going to put your investments 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 if you are using money that isn't yours.

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