Leverage Pros

When the market goes up, we often wish we could get returns on a higher amount of investment than we have at our disposal. In fact, we can. Getting returns (or losses, of course) on more money than your apparent stake is called leverage.
I know of at least three ways individual investors can use it. [...]

1. The use of various financial instruments or borrowed capital, such as margin, to increase the potential return of an investment.
2. The amount of debt used to finance a firm’s assets. A firm with significantly more debt than equity is considered to be highly leveraged. Leverage is most commonly used in real estate transactions [...]