excessive initial margin on HTZGQ

ScroogeMcDuck

ScroogeMcDuck

My HTZGQ bear put spread's initial margin requirement is more than double the maximum possible loss from it:
https://imgur.com/a/csbR15g

Meanwhile my short calls are charging me about 4x the price of the underlying. So when the underlying is $2.2, and I'm short Jan2022 calls at a strike of 1.5, the initial margin is about $880 per contract. This is absurdly high.

Also I'm not allowed to open any new HTZGQ option position, even to hedge the existing ones.

Is this IBKR's fault or OCC's fault?
 
It’s the OCC’s fault you can’t open new positions. If they allowed adjusted options to trade normally, you’d have decent quotes and then stuff like wide spreads wouldn’t screw up IB’s margin calculations.
 
MoreLeverage said:
It’s the OCC’s fault you can’t open new positions. If they allowed adjusted options to trade normally, you’d have decent quotes and then stuff like wide spreads wouldn’t screw up IB’s margin calculations.
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I have lots of other options with bigger spreads and higher IV yet much lower margin requirements than those. In almost all cases the initial margin is a low double digit percentage higher than the maintenance margin. The exceptions are HTZGQ+HYLN+NKLA, where the initial margin is 4x the maintenance margin, regardless of whether you're short the underlying or short calls. I think those three tickers are on a manual blacklist because they got pumped and dumped by retail morons earlier this year. It's probably not OCC's fault because the underlying is affected.
 
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