Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life Field Strategies

Terminology-boundary and risk disclosure: In this appendix, “CLEC” always refers to Teacher James’s “CLEC investing and personal-finance channel” and its teaching system; “Alang” is a community practitioner who joined the CLEC system in its later period, and “Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life” is the channel where he publicly shares his personal operating record — it is not the official opinion of Teacher James himself, nor is it professional investment, tax, or legal advice. Alang’s core spirit (Buy-Borrow-Die, pledge-and-never-sell, indexed long-holding) is inherited from CLEC, but he pushes the “life-cycle investing method” to the extreme and has developed many bolder, more localized “in-the-flesh experiment” variants. This appendix organizes those variants purely as a “case study.” Most of them are advanced operations that are “high-risk and demand extreme psychological fortitude” (such as 70% leverage during accumulation, a one-off credit loan, surrendering commercial insurance, bear-market ladder add-ons, and pledged inside/outside-ledger separation), and they exceed the conservative baseline of this book’s main text (“an allocation must always keep a defensive position; never go ALL IN”). They are suitable only for readers with extremely high risk tolerance who can endure deep drawdowns without losing sleep; beginners and general investors must not apply them directly. The amounts, lot counts, and percentages in this text are all examples specific to Alang’s particular asset scale — not universal formulas; for specific tax law, bank, and product rules, please rely on the latest official announcements and consult a qualified accountant, tax adviser, or financial adviser before acting.

Note on tickers: Besides 00670L (Fubon NASDAQ 2×) used in this book’s main text, this appendix also cites the three broad-market Taiwan 2× ETFs Alang actually uses in the field — 00631L (Yuanta Taiwan 50 2×), 00675L (Fubon Taiwan Weighted 2×), and 00685L (Capital Taiwan Weighted 2×). These three track the broad Taiwan market rather than the NASDAQ-100; they belong to this book’s whitelist category “appendix-only, non-mainstream,” are cited only for this case study, and the main text always uses 00670L.

Everything Alang does rests on one premise — he treats both “borrowed money” and “future salary” as capital that can be put to work ahead of time, and he balances that boldness with an extremely high cash level and strict add-on discipline. The following organizes his distinctive methodology along two main lines: “the offense of the accumulation period” and “the defense of the mature period.”

One, The 73 Split and the Credit Life-Cycle in the Accumulation Period

Alang defines the accumulation period very precisely, drawing a quantifiable line between “still sprinting” and “already ashore.”

Your financial assets have not yet reached 20 times your annual living expenses — not yet 20 times your annual living expenses. For example, suppose your annual living expenses are NT$1 million; so before your financial assets reach NT$20 million, this whole span is called the accumulation period. (Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life, EP137)

Below that line, he advocates a “73 split” — 70% Taiwan 2× and 30% cash — and deliberately does no rebalancing, letting the position grow all the way up. In this book’s allocation code, this is “073” (0 prototype / 7 leveraged-2× / 3 cash), exactly the mirror image of the main text’s conservative golden ratio “703” (7 prototype / 0 leverage / 3 cash), with the middle digit swapped. Both are a 70/30 equity-to-cash split, but Alang puts the entire equity portion into the 2× leveraged position, giving an overall Beta of about 1.4 — far more aggressive than 703, which holds only prototype. This is why 073 suits only the accumulation period and people who can withstand deep drawdowns; once past the 20× threshold, he converges toward the 33 split.

Still in the accumulation period? Then you don’t do rebalancing — just let it keep growing all the way up. (Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life, EP138)

The most aggressive step of the accumulation period is to borrow “the next ten years of salary” and put it to work early. Pushing the life-cycle investing method to the extreme, he took out a one-off NT$6 million credit loan from the broker and put it into the market.

This year I went to KGI to borrow — before I quit, I just borrowed NT$6 million in one shot. That’s several years of salary I’d have to save… I can only save NT$1 million a year, so NT$6 million would take me six years. (Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life, EP129)

This step is equivalent to throwing six years’ worth of future savings into the market ahead of time in one shot. To help ordinary people shed their fear of borrowing, he offers a very down-to-earth analogy — the 80% mortgage that Taiwanese take for granted is essentially 5× leverage.

When you buy a house the bank lends you 80%; you only put down 20% — you’ve opened 5× leverage. Why does nobody demonize buying a house? So why is buying the 2× or borrowing to buy stocks demonized? It shouldn’t be like that. (Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life, EP129)

Notably, even though he dares to borrow NT$6 million at once, he is extremely restrained about the “total leverage multiple,” keeping pledged borrowing within 1.33× of total assets.

In stocks I only open 1.33×; that counts as very conservative… NT$25 million is borrowed, and my assets, say, are NT$100 million — so it’s 4 divided by 3, the answer is 1.33, that’s 133% leverage. (Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life, EP140)

In Alang, the offense and defense of the accumulation period are two sides of one coin — daring to borrow a full run of future salary, yet pressing overall leverage down to 1.33× and keeping 30% cash. That bold premise is what supports every defensive discipline that follows.

Two, Spreading Taiwan 2× Across Issuers

Alang places an enormous share of capital in Taiwan 2×, but he does not bet on a single fund — he deliberately spreads it across three issuers.

Taiwan’s 2×, currently there’s Yuanta Taiwan 50 2× (00631L), Fubon Weighted Index 2× (00675L), and Capital Weighted Index 2× (00685L). Taiwan mainly has these three 2× funds. (Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life, SEP04)

The pain point of spreading out comes from an ETF’s “split trading halt” — when a 2× fund undergoes a split, it stops trading for about a week; if the market moves violently during that window and you need to act urgently, you must always keep another position that can trade immediately.

If you don’t buy now, and you wait until after the split — during the split it rests for a week, and you can’t buy for that whole week. (Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life, EP145)

Three, Milestone Rebalancing and Small-Position Grids

Alang’s rebalancing is not tied to year-end; instead he uses a “round-number milestone in his mind” as the trigger. When total assets cross an integer milestone, he locks in profit and reduces risk once.

My assets were originally NT$50 million; now they’ve grown so the whole portfolio is NT$60 million, so I give it an adjustment, do a rebalancing. From NT$50 million to NT$60 million, the total assets grew by 20% too. (Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life, EP126)

In conversation, this trigger has been described as leveling up in a video game — crossing an integer threshold is like entering the next level, and the rules must change with it. This translates a cold, mechanical rebalancing into “the thrill of clearing a stage,” which the human brain feels most strongly.

For the human nature of “the core asset must never be sold, but the hands just itch,” he also leaves a safety valve — using a small sum for grid-like back-and-forth trades, earning a little lunch money to soothe the urge to trade, while strictly capping the number of lots. He has said he limits the scale of this pocket-money operation so as not to lose big over small gains.

Just limit it to no more than five lots — when it drops you buy, when it rises you sell. (Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life, EP140)

Four, Maximizing Capital Efficiency — Earning Management Fees by Lending and the Pledge Pool

Alang squeezes the efficiency of every position to the extreme. The first move is to lend out 00662 and Taiwan 2×, using the interest earned to offset the ETFs’ annual internal management fees. He has said that by setting the lending rate slightly above the ETF’s internal fee, the interest received roughly covers the management fee — so long-term holding costs almost nothing.

As for 00865B (a US bond ETF), because it cannot be lent out in the securities-lending market, he lets it serve exclusively as collateral for pledged borrowing — since it would otherwise sit idle, better to put it to work.

865B I can’t lend out; rather than let it sit idle, I’d rather use it to pledge and borrow money… I pledge with 865B, so my maintenance ratio is roughly under 200%, because however much I pledge in is exactly how much I want to borrow. (Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life, EP140)

A special reminder for readers here: Alang keeps the maintenance ratio of “that particular pledge” low precisely because the vast majority of his stocks are not placed in the pledge account at all (see the inside/outside-ledger separation in Section Eight). Computed on total financial assets, his overall maintenance ratio is extremely high, and this does not conflict with the main text’s principle of “keep the pledge maintenance ratio conservative and far from the liquidation line” — never imitate the low single-item ratio in isolation.

Five, Bear-Market Add-Ons — The Ladder Grid and the 4% Firewall

Alang turns “adding on the way down” into an extremely mechanical ladder, keyed to how far the 2× has pulled back from its high — the deeper the drop, the more he buys.

If it drops 10% I buy one lot, drops 20% I buy two lots, drops 30% I buy three lots. (Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life, EP127)

But mechanical add-ons risk running out of ammunition in a deep bear. So he sets a firewall — the annual add-on money never exceeds 4% of total financial assets, a figure that happens to equal one year of his living expenses.

My add-on now is no more than 4% a year, because 4% is exactly my one year of living expenses… I take not exceeding 4% as the rule, not exceeding your one year of living expenses as the rule. (Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life, EP128)

Once the ammunition is spent, he stops immediately and waits for the rebound. The point of this firewall is to make sure that when he is only halfway through catching the falling knife, his cash flow does not break and his life is not dragged under.

Six, Converting Prototype to 2× When Cash Runs Dry

When the market falls hard, the cash position is used up, and he dares not touch the survival cash, Alang practices a tactic to “raise exposure without spending new money” — selling part of the relatively drop-resistant prototype ETF (for example 0050 or 006208, which track Taiwan 50) and switching it into the same-index 2×, which has fallen deeper. This raises market exposure without injecting new funds.

When your cash isn’t enough later in the drop, you just sell the prototype and buy the 2× — and that’s fine. (Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life, EP145)

To be clear: this is a “rebalancing / raise-exposure” tactical move, not the “sell-to-withdraw” that this book strictly forbids — the prototype sold is fully switched into 2× and stays held in the market, rather than being cashed out and taken off the table to fund living.

Seven, The 33 Split “Three-Blade Style” for Peak Peace of Mind

In the mature period, Alang evolves his own “33 split” from CLEC’s 433 — he nicknames it the “three-blade style,” cutting assets into three equal parts, each 33.33…% (a repeating decimal that divides the whole into exactly three): one part prototype 00662, one part Taiwan 2×, and one part cash plus 00865B, keeping the three blocks as balanced as possible. In this book’s allocation code, this is “333” — prototype, leverage, and cash each one-third.

Compared with the accumulation period’s “073” (0 prototype / 7 leverage / 3 cash), the mature period’s “333” cuts the 70% leveraged 2× down to about one-third, restoring one-third prototype and a thicker cash cushion; overall Beta also converges from about 1.4 back to about 1, matching the broad market. This “073 → 333” convergence path is precisely Alang’s concrete trajectory from the offense of accumulation to the defense of the free period.

Anyway, wherever I’m short, that’s where I top up, because I’m on the 33 split now, so I try hard to keep the three from differing too much. (Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life, EP140)

And with Beta held at 1, what he gets in exchange is the peace of mind that comes from an extremely high cash level.

My Beta is controlled at just one; the goal is that I roughly track the broad market and chase 10% a year… This 30% in cash is super critical — even in a crash you don’t panic-sell, you can steadily ride through the crisis. 30% in cash is enough to live on for 10 years. (Alang’s Leveraged-2× Life, EP139)

The one-third cash position gives him an extremely high “peace-of-mind index” during market convulsions, so he never loses sleep — precisely the concrete practice of what this book repeatedly stresses: “first prove you have enough years of cash flow, then talk about being aggressive.”

Eight, The Inside/Outside-Ledger Separation Mindset for Pledging

Alang converts the mindset of pledged borrowing into “paying yourself a salary,” and uses “inside/outside-ledger separation” to dissolve the fear of the maintenance ratio. He has said he puts only just enough into the pledge account — for example pledging about NT$500,000 of 00662 to borrow NT$200,000, giving a maintenance ratio of about 250% on that item — while the vast majority of his stocks stay outside the account, unpledged.

Through this switch of perspective — “the single-item maintenance ratio looks ordinary, but the overall maintenance ratio is extremely high” — he thoroughly dissolves the retail investor’s greatest fear of forced liquidation: computed as total assets against total liabilities, his true overall maintenance ratio runs to dozens of times, far from the liquidation line. Remember, this rests on his premise that “the vast majority is unpledged”; it is not an encouragement for readers to press a single item’s maintenance ratio as low as 250%.

Alang’s whole operation is extremely bold on offense yet unusually meticulous on defense — he dares to borrow a full run of future salary and dares to put his entire equity portion into the 2× leveraged fund, yet he always guards one-third cash, a 4% add-on ceiling, and an overall 1.33× leverage ceiling. This “balance of boldness and meticulousness” is the real reason he can stay on this high-leverage 2× road for the long term without losing sleep. For the vast majority of readers, Alang’s value lies not in copying his allocation, but in understanding how he locks every unit of risk firmly in place with a matching discipline.