— eg: Singtel .. in Mar 2006 Singtel held cash_balance (i.e. cash equivalent) to about 5month worth of operating expenses. In Mar 2016 that “cushion” was down to 14D of operating expenses. This is a form of financial leverage.

With a strong financial position, Singtel could easily tap capital markets (bonds etc) and bank financing to raise working capital. Therefore the increased leverage may or may not be a concern.

— eg: Lehman .. (based on https://hbr.org/2009/09/lessons-from-lehman) was overleveraged at 30+.
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In both cases, the leverage is powerful, enviable, a sign of strength when times are good. Those good times could last decades, so the observers may never notice the hidden weakness/risks.

Individuals can borrow from banks but corporations do that at a fundamentally deeper level — some players in a given market must take on leverage just to compete. My focus is _personal_ (and family) finance.

• eg: Individual home buyers, car buyers … can avoid leverage. It may look silly, but legit.
• eg: Individual currency traders can use low leverage like 10, even though it may be unexciting and slow.
• — Below examples are not about leverage but about risk-taking for higher profit:
• eg: Individual stock investors can avoid hot stocks, even though many believe “If you bother to trade U.S. stocks but avoid hot stocks, then what’s the point?”
• eg: Individual stock investors can favor stocks with high dividend but low growth. This style is often sidelined, dismissed, but still a legit style. Many (me too) believe that the hottest growth stocks don’t pay dividends.

In many of these examples, the good times would cast these risk-averse individuals in bad light, as laggards, as /also-rans/, as “missed the show”, but what about in bad times? XR would probably agree with me that “strength would emerge”.

Buffett once quoted his partner saying “there are only three ways a smart person can go broke: liquor, ladies, and leverage.”

In my case, I actually take risky bets with my HY/PE etc but that’s a digression.