Assume I have $100k invested in plain equities. I want to leverage up to 1.3 to invest in US large cap.
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1 /MES futures contract has a notional value of 5 * index price. Currently that is $30k. To buy this contract, I am required to set aside $2500 as a good faith deposit for the contract.
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1 /MES futures contract has a notional value of 5 * index price. Currently that is $30k. To long this contract, I am required to set aside $2500 as a good faith deposit for the contract. Note that the cost is essentially $0.
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This gives me a notional exposure of $30k in the S&P 500 with a deposit of $2500. The $2500 is only the bare minimum, and it is usually advised to keep 2-5x of cash to handle downswings (see [Futures vs equities margin](#futures-vs-equities-margin)). So I set aside $10k as a safe amount of cash for this contract. That means I get a notional exposure of $30k at the cost of $10k. That is 3x leverage.
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This gives me a notional exposure of $30k in the S&P 500 with a deposit of $2500. The $2500 is only the bare minimum, and it is usually advised to keep 2-5x of cash to handle downswings (see [Futures vs equities margin](#futures-vs-equities-margin)).
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That $10k needs to come from somewhere. I could sell $10k of equities. That would give an overall leverage of (100-10+30)/100 = 1.2.
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This gives an overall leverage ratio of:
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If I were to only keep the bare minumum of $2500 in cash, that would increase leverage to (100-2.5+30)/100 = 1.275.