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Interesting data point. Were you short options exclusively? Was your portfolio diversified among your options? I don't know what exactly you mean by "margin call", but the excess cash in my account has gone negative based on intra-day changes. I have had to close positions to get back in to...

For the sake of continuation, my margin jumped from $100k to $250k, a 150% increase, and I was forced to liquidate some of my positions at unfavorable prices. At this point, I am convinced that cheap commissions is not enough to keep me with IB. All I need to know now is if ToS (or...

My wife put on her conspiracy theory hat and suggested that maybe IB intentionally whipsaws accounts with portfolio margin to earn more commission. Not impossible. :D

Mark, The margin values that I am comparing are during the day and the morning of the next day. For example, after making a few trades yesterday, the maintenance margin was $79k. This is the margin that was showing all day in TWS until midnight PST (the daily statement was not yet available)...

Could be. I am in the process of speaking with the Portfolio Margin personnel at ToS and will report with what they have to say. Ideally, I would like to simulate a portfolio margin with them with my current position in IB so I can do an apples-apples comparison.

Mark, I understand what you mean. But you know that something is grossly wrong when your margin increases with the market moving in your favor and vice versa. This morning, the market moved against me, yet my current margin requirement dropped from $105K to 51K!! It just doesn't make sense...

Margin last night (up to 2:30am EST) $105k. Margin this morning $51k. Net change >50%. I need a radical change in either my portfolio or my broker.

What time is the overtime margin report calculated and available? I will pay attention tomorrow to it and report.

Mark, Hmm, interesting example. Just goes to show the inefficiencies with even the most popular brokerages. Out of curiosity, would IB allow you to place two different but same orders of the same quantities? Also, may I ask who you use as your brokerage firm and your experience with...

The trade price, although part of a spread trade, does show for the last price, which does skew the bid/ask for that particular strike price.

And that's my biggest complaint about IB Portfolio Margin. When making the trade, the margin requirement is low. I wake up next day to horror with the maintenance margin lot higher. Like I said, after a few times of this happening, I paid attention to the futures at market open and the...

There were couple of times when the market gapped up, the volatility was down the previous day and on the day in question, and yet my margin requirement went up significantly (with just holding naked puts positions). Is that okay to be laughable? :D

I trade options with Interactive Brokers and been seeing some strange execution behavior. Can someone with more knowledge and experience explain if this is legitimate? I had an order to buy a FOTM SPX option for $0.05. Mine was the highest bid and the only order. Yet, after a couple of hours...

I have read through many posts here and other places and still do not have a definite idea of the best broker for portfolio margin for options strategies. This thread will serve as the reference to those who'd like to open an account with portfolio margin. I am posting a poll here for the...

For the last couple of days, all of these trades have closed at the stop loss. These were also flat market days. My setup is to trade in either the long and short direction. What have other peoples experiences been? Is there a way to improve the strategy performance on such days?

Hi Emintrader, Thanks for this wonderful system. Keep posting those L5 values. I have a couple of question: 1. Can the stop loss be adjusted like making it a trailing stop order so as to limit the loss? 2. Can these L5 percentages be applied to the short side, by simply computing the...

Hi NTW, Thanks for this wonderful post. I have liked it so much that I have read the starting 50 pages several times over to really understand your system. What are the trades that you've been posting? These are not based on your original strategy, are they? Megadeth

True, conservative investors may intend to minimize their risk and consequently the yield. This tool does not promote risky trades if that was implied. The tool only calculates the yields and the corresponding risk for a list of stocks. An investor, conservative or aggressive, may use the...

You are taking my comment out of context to rationalize your conclusion that "maximizing the yield should not be the objective". :confused: Maximizing the yield within your risk range, which is what I said, seems appropriate to me. Good luck with your "intelligent" way of investing.

I agree with your point although not your conclusions. This tool may be dangerous for the naive. For example, a slightly OTM put option would have very high yield, albeit at a high risk of closing ITM. But if you are careful using it, my tool is valuable. It can help identify OTM option...