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Calculating Loan Installments Before Investing Borrowed Money in Stocks

Article Quant Q&A · Author: user6420

Summary

The question explores whether borrowed money can fund a stock purchase whose shares are sold periodically to cover loan installments. It asks about break-even price growth, sale timing, and the return required, while proposing an installment estimate based on principal divided evenly across months plus monthly interest. The response redirects the calculation to the standard present-value relationship for a fully amortizing loan: the loan principal equals the sum of each fixed payment discounted at the monthly interest rate.

It derives the payment by expressing that discounted sum as the difference between two perpetuity values, one deferred to the end of the loan term. This provides a way to calculate the installment amount before modeling any stock sales. The answer does not assess the proposed investment plan, optimize the sale interval, or estimate break-even stock appreciation, and it supplies no evaluation of market risk or loan fees. Those questions require a separate cash-flow analysis using the corrected payment schedule and assumptions about stock prices and sale timing.

Key ideas

  • A fixed loan payment is determined by equating the principal to the discounted value of all scheduled payments.
  • The installment formula must account for interest on the declining loan balance rather than simply adding monthly interest to an equal principal slice.
  • The response derives the payment using the present value of a finite annuity, expressed through perpetuity values.
  • The loan payment calculation alone does not determine whether periodic stock sales will cover installments.
  • Assessing break-even appreciation or sale timing requires a separate model of investment cash flows and prices.

Tags

Full text
# Rate of Return Required on Buying Stocks with Loan


# Rate of Return Required on Buying Stocks with Loan












> A bank gives a loan $L$ for $m$ months and the monthly interest rate is $i$. The bank requires monthly installments - which I calculate is $I = \frac{L}{m} + Li$. I use this loan to buy stocks. If the stock price is $p(m = 0)$, then I can buy $\frac{L}{p(m = 0)}$ shares. I plan to pay the $m$ monthly installments only by selling the optimal number of stocks every $x$ months.

How can I calculate if this plan will pay off? How do I optimize $x$? What variables should I be looking at? Can profit be made from this example? How much does the stock price have to rise to break even? I match abbreviations with their referents.

If I just accept the loan of $L$ and do nothing with it except return it in $m$ installments, then my loss is only the total interest $=m \times Li$. So to break even, $m \times Li$ is what I need to gain from my stocks. But this feels too simple and naive?

Furthermore, the rate of return over the entire period = total interest/loan amount $= \frac{mi}{L}$? This feels wrong because it doesn't account for the fact that stocks will be sold every $x$ months to cover the $m$ monthly installments? I think $x\frac{ I}{p(m)}$ shares must be sold to cover $x$ monthly installments?

I'm already getting lost so maybe some numbers will help - suppose ☻ $L = 10,000$ USD, ☻ $m = 24$, ☻ $i = 0.25\%$ ☻ $p(m = 0) = 80$, ☻ The stock price is expected to go up to $100$ within the 24 months.

I'm new to financial math and only know first-year undergrad math. Sorry for any faults.

## Answer by SRKX (score 1)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/9365

Frankly this is barely understandable.

Assume the nominal of the bond is $L$, the monthly interest rate is $i$, then you have to compute the monthly installments $C$ over $M$ months as follows:

$$L= \sum_{j=1}^M \frac{C}{(1+i)^j}$$

Now, we know that the price of a perpetuity is :

$$\sum_{j=1}^\infty \frac{C}{(1+i)^j}=\frac{C}{i}$$

So you can compute $L$ by subtracting a discounted perpetuity at time $M$ from a perpetuity at time $0$:

$$L= \sum_{j=1}^M \frac{C}{(1+i)^j}= \frac{C}{i} - \frac{1}{(1+i)^M} \frac{C}{i}=\frac{C}{i} \left( 1 - \frac{1}{(1+i)^M} \right)$$

In any way, you want to invest this amount in some stock.

I can't really understand the rest of the question.

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This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.