IB Margin increases....

[Hivey]

Man, IB you need to lower your margin requirement. Yours is the highest of everyone out there.

Fully agree. Believe we're over $24k for 1 ES now...
On the one hand I understand them, but on the other hand it can also backfire:
First day they increased them, I overlooked it (wasn't aware) and was writing strangles on ES that I planned to cover when we would come 50 points from my strikes. Relatively safe strategy I thought, as I did not intend to write more than I could cover. So when we hit the point I had to cover, I found out I didn't have sufficient margin lol. Covered the part I could and sold some at a loss, so no big deal, but still, had they not increased their margins, I would have had less risk.

Anyway, now I know, so will be even more careful not to get close to their limits, but it's annoying.

 

[trickshot]

Yea the margin hikes are getting ridiculous now.

ES is up to 27k, effectively reducing leverage to slightly over 4x, CL is over 10k, so slightly over 2x there, I think you can actually get more leverage if you trade the non-leveraged ETFs.

Either something really bad is happening out there or IB is plain stupid.

 

[burggraben]

A couple days ago I got a bulletin message in TWS that margin can be expected to "increase roughly 50% from current levels". Did that already happen? I didn't notice any change. Just a plain old boring portfolio which consists of fully paid for stocks, some cash and short put options. Just wondering how much money I can "reasonably safely" put to work buying stocks at low prices without getting anywhere near a margin call. Currently my leverage is 0.5, and I am looking to maybe go up to 1.5 leverage to leave room for stocks to go down even lower. What's the lowest level that margin for stocks has ever been at IB during a crisis (in 2008, in 2000)?