Broker with lowest margin requirement for writing index puts?

[ScroogeMcDuck]

Which retail broker has the lowest portfolio margin requirement for writing long-dated index puts?

Also, what's the best broker for a long-term forex carry? IB wants to take 5% of the interest in either direction of USDRUB and that's prohibitively expensive obviously.

 

[luisHK]

There are USDRUB futures available through IB, you might need to rollover your positions monthly (i don't know about the volume in back months) but the US and russian central banks interests should be properly embedded in the futures prices.
Deepdiscounttrading has a better reputation than IB marginwise when it comes to put selling on indexes - I use IB though, and never tried DDT

 

[1245]

Which retail broker has the lowest portfolio margin requirement for writing long-dated index puts?

Also, what's the best broker for a long-term forex carry? IB wants to take 5% of the interest in either direction of USDRUB and that's prohibitively expensive obviously.

Try contacting TD and send them a sample portfolio. Keep in mind that whatever their house rules are above the OCC for PM , they can change that at any time and you might have to add funds, BTC or hedge in the future.

1245

 

[Sig]

Which retail broker has the lowest portfolio margin requirement for writing long-dated index puts?

Also, what's the best broker for a long-term forex carry? IB wants to take 5% of the interest in either direction of USDRUB and that's prohibitively expensive obviously.

I think it's even worse than you think with IB. They charge you 16% on the RUB for the portion you're short, and pay you either 0% (5% if you have over 700,000 RUB) if you're long. If you're going short RUB you get 0% on your USD and pay 16% on your RUB so you're carry cost is 16%. The futures are obviously the way to go to get the real carry cost without any haircuts. Also, IB seems to have the worst forex carry rates around, so you might try comparison shopping at some other brokers.