IB: Different Margin for FGBL Long vs Short Trades ???

[Pantalaimon]

Hi all,

bit stunned atm to say the least.

I wasn't able to put on the short position on the Bund Future that I wanted to.

Long positions at the same time would however have been possible.

On asking I was informed by my third party software and trade execution provider that IB has differing FGBL margin requirements of at this time


for longs of € 3482,-

for shorts of € 3950,-


I have never experienced that so far either ever, in no Futures I traded with them, margin was always the same for longs and shorts.

Would be great if someone could shed some light on this.

Thanks

 

[MoreLeverage]

Not sure about those futures specifically, but this is common. Risks for shorting are different than going long, usually higher, so higher shorting requirements aren’t unreasonable.

It may also depend on your portfolio and how the risk of that marginal trade impacts what you have already, for example in a portfolio margin account.

 

[Picaso]

This happens with stocks all the time (I'm also on IB), but to be honest, I had never seen it with futures. ???

(On my IB screen I have 3930 EUR for shorts and 3475 EUR for longs, but this may be due to USD<>EUR rounding/conversions).

 

[newbunch]

Got to IB's futures margin page at https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/trading/margin-futures-fops.php It shows FGBL has an initial margin of 3482.17 and a short initial margin of 3938.66.
Check out VIX futures. Initial margin of 8,891.31 but short initial margin of 32,725.08.