IB Portfolio Margin: More than 6x Margin?

Hey all,

I downloaded the TWS Demo from IB and I went in and quickly tested buying 1700 shares of SPY.

Here is my account window:

4ZY8E3o.png


I'm new to trading so correct me if I'm wrong here. I was under the impression that PM allowed a maximum of 6x margin, but the numbers I'm seeing here show a gross position value of $362k with a maintenance margin of only $33k. This is greater than 10x.

When I try this with stocks like AAPL, GOOGL, AMZN, etc, I'm seeing more normal leverage, but with indexes like SPY the maintenance margin is significantly lower.

Is this a glitch or do indexes truly get more than 6x margin?

Thanks
 
glossolalia,

The OCC offers 15% margin on equities (6.6X) and more for broad based indexes. For SPY they shock down 8% and up 6%. that is a max of 12.5X and 16.66X respectively. Of course each clearing broker can offer less but not more.

Bob
 
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