Comments on: I love leverage

By: Cody McKibben

Cody McKibben — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 21:15:53 +0000

I love my 401k, but unfortunately it doesn’t have the leverage many private industry 401ks have, since I work for the state of California. Anyone else know of any other good retirement savings programs for CalPERS-eligible state employees that offer leverage?

By: Simran Gill

Simran Gill — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 21:16:31 +0000

I did some modelling showing the effects of leverage here – some might find it interesting:
http://simran.crownpac.net/blog/2006/08/26/personal-finance-and-simulation-modelling/

By: John Knox

John Knox — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 14:28:13 +0000

Stock options are a very interesting form of leverage. Buy a call option and if the underlying stock goes above the strike price you can cash in. Buy a put option and you can make money if the stock price goes down below the strike price.

You can control a lot more stock with less money using options, but they are riskier. They eventually expire, which could mean that you lose your entire investment in the options.

If you can negotiate options when getting hired by a publicly traded company, you might eventually get a nice windfall. I guess that makes negotiation the best leverage of all: a little hot air for potentially lots of money!

By: Ben Casnocha

Ben Casnocha — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 07:29:45 +0000

NPR gets tons of donations and just received a huge billion dollar gift. I think there are other media struggling to survive that deserve donations.

By: David

David — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 23:19:30 +0000

Who is borrowing money in this situation? Matching funds is usually a way for one group (the company) to use their generosity to in-cent others to also give.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 21:51:59 +0000

Does this count as leverage? I can give money to the food bank (and I do), but I can also give money to an organization that serves youth at risk (Youthcare). It tries to get kids off the streets and give them life training so they don’t have to go to the food bank (I give more to this organization than the food bank).

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:32:14 +0000

Using blog readership to heft up a new web site’s usage?
Using stock options to leverage a greater number of shares than you can buy?

By: pakiya

pakiya — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:20:08 +0000

this is what i call leverage …. a country will an ant size GDP impacting the world’s economy

“Stocks Off After Coup Occurs in Thailand”
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060919/wall_street.html?.v=21

By: jonathan

jonathan — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 18:27:21 +0000

leverage example

web frameworks, ruby on rails

By: Gary

Gary — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 18:13:00 +0000

Unclear that the facts of your NPR example would actually support your suggestion about leverage.

Having worked as a fundraising professional I can tell you that while matching gifts frequently WORK as a means to successfully solicit additional funds, the reality is usually that the donor offering the match is going to give the same amount regardless of what others do. Either (1) they make a pledge and then offer to structure it as a match so the charity can successfully use it to secure additional contributions or (2) they’re going to give X regardless of whether the charity raises the additional dollars or not.

It’s an effective sales technique for the charity, but more often than not just that.