Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open.

Is 6% too high to trade stocks on margin?
Yes, 6% is a waste of money, because some other brokers such as IB offer margin rates below 2%.   Also, to borrow money for even less than any broker's margin interest rate, one can do an EFP transaction.   This involves simultaneously shorting a stock and buying the SSF for the same stock.   When the futures contract expires, you take delivery of the underlying stock to automatically close out your short position.  Until then, you've effectively borrowed cash for the cost of borrowing the stock, which is typically less than 0.5% interest for widely traded ones.  You also pay for the slight difference in price between the stock and the future, which is typically equivalent to another 0.5% interest or less.  The total often comes to less than 1% interest. The only risk with this transaction is that the stock could become hard to borrow at some point, so then you would have to pay higher interest on it temporarily or maybe even have to close out your short early.  But it is extremely rare for large, high-volume stocks to become hard-to-borrow.  The borrowing cost of SPY has spiked above 5% on only a handful of days in the last decade.