How margin rules have changed

[poopy]

Those figures are DT and maintenance. Initial (held overnight) will be higher.

Apparently they only charge maint overnight.

 

[long]

Technically, stop loss and profit target are merely exit orders (aka OCO orders) and should not be counted towards the margin. Who is your broker?

Tradestation. To be fair, I haven’t questioned them about my gripe. And reading further down the thread OCO was mentioned. The problem might be on my end if I have to somehow select an OCO option. I just expected that their system should recognize that the additional orders would be offsets and not position increases. I know for a fact that my old broker didn’t have to designate new orders as offsets, the system recognized that. If all I have to do is learn the order placing mechanism I no longer have a gripe.

 

[long]

View attachment 339021

This is from Amp futures. Here, you need $2,400 (per lot) in your account to open a trade. Anytime your account falls below this amount, your position will be automatically liquidated.

As for depositing additional funds after receiving a margin call, those days are long gone. Most brokers, if not all, will simply close out your trades and lock you out until you send more moolah.

From what I’ve been told you no longer have 3 days to make good on a margin call but it’s up to the broker to make the decision to call you for money or call to inform you your position has been liquidated. Ten years ago my broker only accepted checks or wire transfers. ACH wasn’t allowed because it could be retracted by the sender while wire transfers were final. They have started accepting ACH because a wire transfer required the client to physically go to the bank and ACH can be done instantly on a phone.

 

[Overnight]

Those figures are DT and maintenance. Initial (held overnight) will be higher.

Overnight numbers will be 10% higher, so in the case of ZS, $2,650 total NLV needed.

 

[murray t turtle]

That may well be the case for futures. But with stock and options, many brokers will still give you time to respond to a margin call by adding funds, or by selling something else in your account, or by closing the position yourself.

We are in the US, and our broker is Schwab. We had a margin call a couple weeks ago. We transferred funds the next morning, using ACH. Not a fed funds wire transfer. No fees.

In another case, we were able to substantially reduce the option requirement on the account, and free up funds for new positions, simply by closing a few naked short VIX calls that would have expired worthless the next morning. Closed them for $.01 each (x 100 multiplier = $1.00). The fees and commissions to do that were six cents per contract.

We do not have portfolio margin. We are approved for naked short options.
I'm not going to disclose our account value LOL

It is above the $25K threshhold so we don't have to be concerned about PDT rules. It is below Schwab's requirement for portfolio margin.

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ACTUALLY a bank or brokerage has a fair amount of discretion, with the way they can do margin or credit, looks like you realize that.
SCHW told me they consider money market cash+ worst case they would sell that first, fair enough, even though really, they a can sell anything they want + dont have to give notice, but SCHW has such good custom service i trust them.
I READ AMeritrade Founders book;
i think it was 20o8, had to liquidate some accounts he noted. Others he dida FDX warning margin call, but noted by the time they got the FDX notice, market hard turned, no need to liquidate LOL