Anyone getting new margin requirements at IB due to "Valuation Uncertainty"??

S

Shadetree42

I have several overnight SMART-routed stock orders -- mostly GTC. This morning, between 8:00 and 8:30am ET, all of these orders were cancelled/rejected, despite the fact that nothing changed in terms of my margin buying power overnight, and these orders have always activated just fine for weeks with a very similar portfolio. E.g., I had $600k of buying power, but an order to short $5,000 of a S&P 100, 15%-vol stock was cancelled with the following pop-up error:

"Your equity with loan value ($XXX) must exceed the initial margin ($XXX) plus valuation uncertainty ($XXX)." The problem is that that "valuation uncertainty" figure was 4-5x the value of my account. I have Portfolio Margin and a simple long/short stock portfolio -- one that is reasonably hedged but biased long at the moment, so shorting should require even less margin.

Anyway, has anyone else seen a change in this behavior starting this morning (Aug 23)? This is the first time I have ever seen the words "valuation uncertainty" in my seven years of using TWS.
 
I didn't see the error, but I had all my opening GTC orders canceled last night or early this morning, and with no obvious change in my available cash/liquidity. Annoying.
 
If there is anyone here from IB, can you please chime in? I would call in, but the CS leaves a lot to be desired in my (7 years of) exp.
 
I'll start my software before that tomorrow and will watch for that or any other error. Sometimes when their risk dept implements some new more conservative rule, they miss some edge cases and you have to point those out so they can get fixed.
 
IB certainly makes you feel like you are a guinea pig sometimes. Pretty inexcusable on their part. (I had this happen to me yesterday morning as well).
 
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