100% increase in one day's notice is still a lot.
Quote from jeb9999:
Traders use IB as a broker for two keys reasons- experience and expectations. If you understand how the markets work and how brokers work you want to use a broker that has the same understanding. You don't want your hard earned capital being risked by the broker or by the broker's other customers due to poor risk management by the broker.
I don't recall traders here at ET complaing about the risk management policies and practices of any broker except IB. That makes you wonder if all the other brokers have any effective risk management policies and practices at all. How many other futures firms have risk management policies and practices like those of MF Global - whoops, $141.5 million down the drain by one trader. Knowledgeable traders appreciate the fact that IB's risk management policies and practices are heartless. If your account violates margin requirements then your account automatically gets liquidated to bring it back into compliance. No exceptions for whiners and losers. IB protects itself and in doing so it protects all customers.
I am not happy about putting up full margin for intraday futures trades, but I understand why IB has temporarily changed their futures margin policy. At some point in the future the margin requiremnets will go back to normal. In the meantime, the higher day trading futures margins costs IB money because futures traders are doing less trading and paying less commissions. How many other brokers prize risk management above commission income?
Any one who does not like IB's margin policies and practices is free to use any of the numerous other brokers that are out there and I strongly recommend that you stay away from IB, as they are not the broker for you.
And for the mathematically challanged morons in this thread, a doubling of intraday futures margin is a 100% increase, not a 300% increase.