Interactive Brokers Incorrect Option Margin Requirements
- Thread starter frostengine
- Start date
I agree. Pretty poor display of sheer laziness imho as someone who has coded similar stuff, but that's their model.
@Robert Morse, what if clients are long but leveraged? So... long 400 stocks @100 with 30k capital... they would be subject to IB's margin rules. Same would go with a long call or put spread...
Maybe OP has more positions which are leveraged/over own capital... so a long call spread is bought on margin and needs to adhere to those rules.
During GFC I was long
stocks incl AMBAC... and short some options... (again ) then margin on the options wasn't covered anymore due to the floor collapsing and IB was liquidating some AMBAC (which ended up being a good thing since it dropped way beyond what the liquidation level was).
Not saying that IB's margin rules make total sense... they don't...
Maybe OP has more positions which are leveraged/over own capital... so a long call spread is bought on margin and needs to adhere to those rules.
During GFC I was long
stocks incl AMBAC... and short some options... (again ) then margin on the options wasn't covered anymore due to the floor collapsing and IB was liquidating some AMBAC (which ended up being a good thing since it dropped way beyond what the liquidation level was).Not saying that IB's margin rules make total sense... they don't...
Robert Morse
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I'm not a expert of what IB does. And, they seem to change their risk rules often.
How are they being "gamed" exactly? How can you or they lose more than the purchase price of a long stop or option or the max defined loss on a european options spread? That's the topic of this thread, not if IB can or should increase allowed leverage.
Do you even understand what tail-risk means ?
@Robert Morse, what if clients are long but leveraged? So... long 400 stocks @100 with 30k capital... they would be subject to IB's margin rules. Same would go with a long call or put spread...
Maybe OP has more positions which are leveraged/over own capital... so a long call spread is bought on margin and needs to adhere to those rules.
During GFC I was long
Not saying that IB's margin rules make total sense... they don't...
Jack, in one account I own 50K in options, have about 50K cash. My initial margin is over 50K, so I can;t open a new position. So, again my portfolio: 50% in being long options, 50% cash, where is risk? where is logic ? Lets stop talking about hypotheticals here. Show me the risk ?