I'll try, Roxie. In my opinion, Interactive Brokers (IB) is the best brokerage in almost every way. I have not done the following, but this is my understanding of what can be done and what I intend to do.
First, on most stocks on which IB allows margin, they allow leverage (borrowing) up to 4x, meaning with $100 you can buy $400 worth of eligible stock. It would usually be foolish to max out margin credit because any dip in one of your stocks would cause an immediate margin call--very bad.
The biggest benefit of a high margin is that it gives you a large buffer if you only use small or modest amounts of margin leverage. E.g. If you have $100 and buy $150 worth of eligible stock, you have a lot more room for price fluctuations without causing a margin call than you would if they only allowed a 2x leverage.
Second, IB charges the lowest interest rates on margin. For a Pro account, the currently charge a maximum interest rate of 1.6%, for borrowing up to $100K. The interest rate goes up for borrowing more, as low as 0.75% for amounts over $200M. For Lite accounts, the interest rate is currently 2.6% regardless of the amount.
Third, IB allows cash withdrawals on margin accounts. So if I have $1M worth of margin-eligible stocks in my account and no cash, I can withdraw $100K in cash and use that cash to pay off a mortgage, buy a car, etc, and my total account would be margined at 1.1x.
Fourth, they currently do not allow margin on AVXL. I recently asked them when that might change, and they said it would be considered after AVXL reaches $5B in market cap, which would currently be around $75/share.
Next, I plan not to sell any of my AVXL stock, perhaps ever. I am 100% invested in AVXL. The only reason to sell would be if I think it has passed a permanent peak in price and Anavex decides not to pay dividends. I expect Anavex will begin paying dividends sometime after they have been earning significant profits, and that they will be modest payments at first, with small increases in the amount of dividend per share increasing every year.
Finally, when I want to spend some money I will wait until IB sets AVXL as margin eligible and withdraw some cash. They may initially restrict how much it qualifies for, perhaps only 2x, but don't think that would be very risky for up to a 1.1x margin cash withdrawal with AVXL still trending up in the long run. Then I will either save some of the withdrawal to make interest payments or I will let IB loan me the interest payments and add it to my margin. Once Avavex starts paying dividends, I will deposit some or all of the dividend payments to my IB account to pay off my margin loans.
I hope I explained this well enough. If not, please feel free to ask for clarifications.
