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Interactive Brokers margin requirements
- Thread starter minioptions
- Start date
Quote from minioptions:
within half an hour there was nothing to do but watch the account get wipe out.
I never heard of a broker using over night margin requirements during the day. Other brokers I check with had normal requirements. :eek:
You haven't mentioned what instruments you were trading at the time. You mentioned futures; given your name, were you in ES only, index options, or something else?
reply to traderNik
ES Condors (put and call credit spreads on the S&P 500 mini contract). With the S&P down 50, some of the short side of the puts were at the money.
ES Condors (put and call credit spreads on the S&P 500 mini contract). With the S&P down 50, some of the short side of the puts were at the money.
Quote from IV_Trader:
Changing the rules in the middle of the game is traderâs worst nightmareâ¦Iâm very often carrying following overnight PM based positions:
Long the stock.
Long twice ( or more , depending on deltas) # of puts , then :
87â all over againâ¦Futures are down huge , stock tanks 50% + in pre-marketâ¦broker ârevisits and cuts â margins rules and sell my stocks ( by totally ignoring huge puts profits , because options market is not open yet). Stock bouncing back ( a bit/a lot) before 9:30. I am in the huge loss instead of ABSOLUTE HOME RUN.
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jimrockord
Your facts are not correct. If you held protective puts hedging your stocks, they would have affected your maintenance margin requirements at IB. Your maintenance margin requirement, for each protective put, would have been the lesser of the stock's requirement, or the sum of 10% of the aggregate put exercise price plus 100% of the amount by which the puts were out of the money.
My guess is that you don't understand IB's margin requirements well enough to be using margin at IB, and this inadequate preparation is the reason why you got burned.
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Thatâs EXACTLY what is happening with one of my stock nowâ¦stock is tanking in pre-market and my short stock position shows big lossâ¦while long puts are unchanged (obviously).
Retard: stop pretending that you know something and confuse ppl will misleading info
Changing the rules in the middle of the game is traderâs worst nightmareâ¦Iâm very often carrying following overnight PM based positions:
Long the stock.
Long twice ( or more , depending on deltas) # of puts , then :
87â all over againâ¦Futures are down huge , stock tanks 50% + in pre-marketâ¦broker ârevisits and cuts â margins rules and sell my stocks ( by totally ignoring huge puts profits , because options market is not open yet). Stock bouncing back ( a bit/a lot) before 9:30. I am in the huge loss instead of ABSOLUTE HOME RUN.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jimrockord
Your facts are not correct. If you held protective puts hedging your stocks, they would have affected your maintenance margin requirements at IB. Your maintenance margin requirement, for each protective put, would have been the lesser of the stock's requirement, or the sum of 10% of the aggregate put exercise price plus 100% of the amount by which the puts were out of the money.
My guess is that you don't understand IB's margin requirements well enough to be using margin at IB, and this inadequate preparation is the reason why you got burned.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thatâs EXACTLY what is happening with one of my stock nowâ¦stock is tanking in pre-market and my short stock position shows big lossâ¦while long puts are unchanged (obviously).
Retard: stop pretending that you know something and confuse ppl will misleading info
Quote from minioptions:
The markets opened with the Dow down 400 and the S&P down 50 points.
I figured that the market would move up like it usually does on a very low open but if it didn't I would close or move some open positions.
Interactive Brokers decided at the open that they would not change to the day margin requirements.
This made my margin twice what I thought it would be and resulted in a margin call. Over the next half hour Interactive Brokers closed half of my positions at the worst price of the day. The program locked me out so that I could not buy or sell anything. Since there is no way to get money into the account or talk to anyone at Interactive Brokers within half an hour there was nothing to do but watch the account get wipe out.
I never heard of a broker using over night margin requirements during the day. Other brokers I check with had normal requirements. :eek:
Yikes. You figured... You thought... You never heard...
in English, you are saying:
I was terribly overleveraged.
IB adjusted to market conditions, as is legal and probably in my agreement with them.
I don't know how to trade or use money/portfolio management
Therefore IB's policy is unfair.
And probably:
"I need to find another broker. That will fix my incompetence.