IB - Portfolio Margin have higher requirement than Reg-T!!!
- Thread starter ofinance
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Quote from ofinance:
To hold 3 short strangles on GOOG, SPY and AAPL with a net credit of $4,600, Reg-T required margin is 24k while for Portfolio Margin its 35k. Hope some IB representatives can shed some light on this, it really doesn't make any sense that PM have higher requirements than Reg-t, in the worst case scenario it should have the same requirements as reg-t. You don't go through the hassle of applying for a pm upgrade and wait for approval just to to get less buying power than before
It is a good thread since many might have this problem. As IB mentions in its webpage, sometimes PM might require more margin than reg T. I was also shocked when that happend to me. Then I learnt it and lived with it. Stranger than that is when you see you have 20K extra cash for trade and none of the underlying changes and the next day, you see you have -15K cash !!. PM is best for strangles. The attachment will also be helpful for you to see which strategies are best for PM. Please note that IB gest the PM requirement from CBOE I believe (most probably I am wrong on this ) but it follows the industry requirements.
Note: you are also right, in none of the examples, in the attachment PM margin requirement is higher than reg-T.
Quote from hajimow:
I checked your positions. I believe AAPL order is a margin killer. I also believe that based on the first two strangles, your AAPL call psoition is wrong. It should be for the strike price of 625 and not 425.
Even if the the two AAPL options contracts were considered as seperate unrelated positions with each one its own margin requirements and its own risk the PM should still give a litlle bit more buying power than the Reg-T, just like hajimow said in none of the examples of the CBOE does the PM requires more cash than the Reg-T and im sure you agree with me that it doesn't make sense especially with short option contracts which is what 99% of those who want to get the PM will do.
<<< Stranger than that is when you see you have 20K extra cash for trade and none of the underlying changes and the next day, you see you have -15K cash !!. >>>
Speaking of strange margin occurances, here is one for all spread traders to be WARNED about:
I initiated bunch of bull put spreads a long time ago, with the knowlege that a specific amount of margin would be set aside for each trade via their computer. Namely the gap between my strikes times the number of contracts. Simple.
Well guess what!
Some of my spreads went really deep OTM, which is a good thing.
But that resulted in the computer lowering my margin cash requirement, as it automatically switched over to another formula to calculate my new updated margin requirement.
Isn't that a good thing???
NO!
Because no one informs you that the computer lowers your margin requirement when your trade goes super deep OTM.
Therefore, I thought I had more money to spend, which i had previously missed..... which I then did, on additional spreads.
But sometime later, those deep OTM spreads were not quite so deep, and the computer switched back to the original margin requirement formula.... resulting in an unexpected margin call for me.
At the time, I made the mistake of using all my cash for spreads, thinking there was no risk for margin calls, as no margin was used for the spread trades. Only cash via the spread gap times # of contract formula.
When I told Schwab about what happended they informed me there was no way to stop the computer from doing that, as prices went in and out of being deep OTM. They said the computer thinks it's doing you a favor, by freeing up more money for you.
I said it would indeed be a favor if i was alerted to what was going on. But I just thought I had extra money to spend that I had earlier missed. Turns out the only way to stop the computer from doing you a "favor", is to change your status from being a level 3 trader to a level 2.
In other words, no more ability to do naked put or call type strategies.
Speaking of strange margin occurances, here is one for all spread traders to be WARNED about:
I initiated bunch of bull put spreads a long time ago, with the knowlege that a specific amount of margin would be set aside for each trade via their computer. Namely the gap between my strikes times the number of contracts. Simple.
Well guess what!
Some of my spreads went really deep OTM, which is a good thing.
But that resulted in the computer lowering my margin cash requirement, as it automatically switched over to another formula to calculate my new updated margin requirement.
Isn't that a good thing???
NO!
Because no one informs you that the computer lowers your margin requirement when your trade goes super deep OTM.
Therefore, I thought I had more money to spend, which i had previously missed..... which I then did, on additional spreads.
But sometime later, those deep OTM spreads were not quite so deep, and the computer switched back to the original margin requirement formula.... resulting in an unexpected margin call for me.
At the time, I made the mistake of using all my cash for spreads, thinking there was no risk for margin calls, as no margin was used for the spread trades. Only cash via the spread gap times # of contract formula.
When I told Schwab about what happended they informed me there was no way to stop the computer from doing that, as prices went in and out of being deep OTM. They said the computer thinks it's doing you a favor, by freeing up more money for you.
I said it would indeed be a favor if i was alerted to what was going on. But I just thought I had extra money to spend that I had earlier missed. Turns out the only way to stop the computer from doing you a "favor", is to change your status from being a level 3 trader to a level 2.
In other words, no more ability to do naked put or call type strategies.
RegT is rules based and PM is risked based. Therefore PM will look at 20-30 different risk arrays and choose the most expensive one to apply at any given time, which can change from one to another many times intraday.
Since PM is meant for portfolios with many different underlyings so the portfolio is effectively cross margined, it can and often is, be more expensive than RegT when you only have a few positions. 3 classes and 6 strikes qualifies as highly concentrated so PM is likely going to be higher than RegT. There is no .375 pricing constant (or any other number) as applies to PM.
Furthermore, I think this example is a paper trade account, not a real account.
Since PM is meant for portfolios with many different underlyings so the portfolio is effectively cross margined, it can and often is, be more expensive than RegT when you only have a few positions. 3 classes and 6 strikes qualifies as highly concentrated so PM is likely going to be higher than RegT. There is no .375 pricing constant (or any other number) as applies to PM.
Furthermore, I think this example is a paper trade account, not a real account.
As 1245 mentioned, the minimum margin requirement for any option under PM is .375.
http://www.optionsclearing.com/risk-management/cpm/disclosure.jsp
I don't know where to start. This is just not even close to being correct. PM is meant to offer experienced equity and option traders more leverage based on risk. There is no cross margining except some like products like positions in SPX and SPY. The is no offset for being long IBM and short AAPL. Reg-t NEVER has a lower margin requirement except the example I gave before. In general, Reg-t requires at least 50% margin for equities. PM requires at least 15% margin for the same equity position.
Any short option position or spread has a lower requirement for PM. The only advantage of Reg-t is buying low priced options.
OK, I misspoke by saying cross margining when I should have said offset; mea culpa. Offsets are indeed applied to contrasting positions in similar (i.e - hedged & correlated) securities such as indices and non-narrow based ETFs. The 15% requirement in single name stocks you reference is again a minimum, not the max that can apply under PM risk arrays.
PM attempts to see a balanced, hedged portfolio as less risky than RegT requirements, but not all portfolios qualify as less risky. This is especially likely when dealing with concentrated portfolios.
So while PM may offer up to 6:1 intraday margin vs. the typical 2:1 found with RegT, PM can and does sometimes have higher margin requirements than RegT. PM is risk based, so if a portfolio has higher risk per the PM model, it will require higher margin, maybe even higher than RegT. Also, brokers can always charge more than the minimum requirements of either than RegT or PM, based on their own in-house rules.
Portfolio Margin is to reflect the lower risk inherent in a balanced portfolio of hedged positions. Conversely, Portfolio Margin must assess proportionately larger margin for accounts with positions which represent a concentration in a relatively small number of stocks.
PM attempts to see a balanced, hedged portfolio as less risky than RegT requirements, but not all portfolios qualify as less risky. This is especially likely when dealing with concentrated portfolios.
So while PM may offer up to 6:1 intraday margin vs. the typical 2:1 found with RegT, PM can and does sometimes have higher margin requirements than RegT. PM is risk based, so if a portfolio has higher risk per the PM model, it will require higher margin, maybe even higher than RegT. Also, brokers can always charge more than the minimum requirements of either than RegT or PM, based on their own in-house rules.
Portfolio Margin is to reflect the lower risk inherent in a balanced portfolio of hedged positions. Conversely, Portfolio Margin must assess proportionately larger margin for accounts with positions which represent a concentration in a relatively small number of stocks.