Well I guess you didn't understand why in my previous explanation, so I'll try again. All my money isn't liquid and in the stock market. Therefore, I have a finite amount of money in my slush fund to play with in the market. At any given time I will have most of the money in several stocks, when all of a sudden a play looks really good but yet, alas, I really don't want to liquidate one good play just to do another, so I will use the buying power of my margin acct to make the additional play. It's not that I can't afford to do it, rather, I do it because I can. Or does this not make any sense to you?