I do use lombard credit. There are a few pitfalls however.
- You need a strong control of your money management; don’t wait for a margin call.
- I found only one broker who offers fair rates which was Interactive Brokers.
- I defined every detail of the strategies in advance. Your brain has more than a 100 bias that make investing a nightmare and the lombard (margin credit) makes them worse.
I live off my investments since 11 years and have a high cash flow strategy and a high risk momentum strategy in place. Both use margin. The high cash flow strategy uses margin only temporary, in bear markets and when I need to take out money (needing money is no good reason to sell a stock). The high risk momentum strategy uses margin all the times, between 130 and 300%.
If you are interested in my strategies I have a thread called “mechanical investment strategies”:
Here are the margin rates of Interactive Brokers. If you don’t want to go there use it as a bargaining argument with your broker.
BTW: I don’t like the option strategies. After many many years of small gains you may hit a big missed gain or a big loss with that strategy that wipes out years or decades of making small amounts of money.