Hi guys,
I am relatively new to futures but am wondering why no one considers futures for longer term investment. I am going to propose an idea that in my mind seems like a good method for a solid 13 to 15% return a year on average using ES, I would appreciate it if more knowledgeable members could cirque it, perhaps I am missing something very obvious. Thanks in advance.
Suppose I have 100k.
Scenario one: I invest the entire 100k in an S&P 500 index like VOO, and on average I achieve a return of 10% per year without accounting for inflation. Overall I would pay $50 dollars management fee a year (.05% of 100k)
Scenario two: I purchase one ES future which currently gives exposure to 100k of S&P 500. As I receive no dividends, average return in a year would be 8%.
Le'ts say in order to purchase the ES future I put 30k into my account. I then put 10k into a savings account with the bank which I can use to top up margin if required (I live in NZ so can get 4.5% interest on this account).
I then put 40k into a conservative mutual fund which allows access to funds within one week (we have one in NZ which has averaged 14% return since inception in March 2010 with very low volatility but lets assume its average return is 8%). This is a further 30k which can be accessed very quickly to top up margin.
The remaining 20k is put into VOO at an average return of 10% a year.
The total return on this 100k would be:
8k from ES (as exposure to 100k worth of S&P)
450 from bank interest
3,200 from mutual fund
2,000 from VOO
This results in a return of 13650 on an investment of 100k or 13.65% per year.
You could just continue rolling over your ES contract which would cost around 64 dollars a year (16 dollars each rollover).
If you started at a bad time (i.e. just before a recession) you may need to top up your margin account but over the long term this seems like a solid strategy to wealth.
In terms of my circumstances, I am young with a lot of disposable income that can be saved, so this slight level of leverage will not be a problem (its only 1.7 leverage). The leverage could even be increased to x2 as this is considered the optimum level over the long term: Here is an article on the subject - http://ddnum.com/articles/leveragedETFs.php
Anyway is there something I am missing which would not make this a viable strategy? Thanks