Can You Romney-Size Your IRA? (The Motley Fool)

The key to making an IRA grow is finding investments with the most potential for capital appreciation. Employees at Bain Capital, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney, were able to multiply their IRA balances through a strategy involving dual classes of stock. One class offered reasonable terms. The other offered substantial risk, but larger rewards. When the right deal came along, they put the high-reward shares in tax-favored accounts. Ordinary investors don’t have access to dual classes of shares, but they do have the ability to use high-risk, high-reward investment vehicles like options and leveraged ETFs. However, using options this way requires finding a stock that continuously defies the investing world by beating expectations repeatedly, pushing shares upward quickly over short time periods. Even before that, an investor must be comfortable with the possibility of losing their entire retirement nest egg.