Is 6% too high to trade stocks on margin?
6% isn't "too high" in terms of market rates at the moment, however it's a very subjective question whether it's too high for you. The real question to determine is if paying 6%, can you make more than 6% return (to cover the costs plus your profit)? As for a rule of thumb, there's none I know of, however your best bet is to take the time to model it in Excel (not difficult).  It's different for each portfolio or investment. Something with a high standard deviation of returns is already high risk, adding margin to it only makes it worse.  So, long story short is that, "it depends".
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### Instruction:
Is 6% too high to trade stocks on margin?

### Response:
6% isn't "too high" in terms of market rates at the moment, however it's a very subjective question whether it's too high for you. The real question to determine is if paying 6%, can you make more than 6% return (to cover the costs plus your profit)? As for a rule of thumb, there's none I know of, however your best bet is to take the time to model it in Excel (not difficult).  It's different for each portfolio or investment. Something with a high standard deviation of returns is already high risk, adding margin to it only makes it worse.  So, long story short is that, "it depends".