Hey buddy. Welcome back to reality.
I certainly appreciate your opinion. And I think generally speaking you are correct. However generalisations don't always apply. By cranking up the margin lending, I mean increasing it. I have had an account for a while now. I treat it totally differently to my other accounts. Firstly, Nabtrade limit which stocks you can buy. PLS, SMN, AGO, IDX, and many, many others are not on the approved lending list. So they protect you from yourself. No dodgy specs allowed. Secondly, I don't think of it as their money; it's mine and I am paying them interest. Thirdly, I look at it a bit like a mortgage. Not looking to make money quickly; just looking to make more money than the 6 to 7% they are charging me. I gear conservatively and look at it a bit like buying an investment property, but without the hassles. As long as the tenants pay more rent than the costs, eventually it will pay itself off and I will get the lot for free, with not much effort. Long term stuff. At the moment some TLS tenants are paying me rent, and it's due at the end of this month
. TCL was there before it. And NAB and BHP before that. Unfortunately MGC also found its way into the place at some stage, around the time of that trading halt and its massive drop
, and then it required a bit of redecorating .... Choose your tenants carefully.
But yes, if you go in and go nuts thinking you are going to make a killing, it can be a quick road to ruin. I will let you know how it's going for some extra entertainment. I keep it pretty boring though. Self discipline is the key. I try and keep my twitching fingers well away from that account.
My other account got hammered today. All red except idx which didn't trade. Grabbed another 3k of TLS @3.67, and then it promptly dropped some more, as expected. A bit more AGO too. Nothing to do now except wait. Which is fine because I won't be able to watch the numbers much at all for the rest of the week. Hope my kids behave themselves.
