Margin in IB Universal Accounts

A

AAAintheBeltway

I assume IB allows 4 times equity intraday margin for stock daytrading. I know they basically follow exchange minimums for futures margin and allow half margin for intraday futures trades. My question is whether or not you can use stock equity for futures margin. In other words, if you have an account with $100k in stock equity but no cash, could you trade futures with that, and if so, how much futures margin would it support? And would you incur margin interest?
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

I assume IB allows 4 times equity intraday margin for stock daytrading. I know they basically follow exchange minimums for futures margin and allow half margin for intraday futures trades. My question is whether or not you can use stock equity for futures margin. In other words, if you have an account with $100k in stock equity but no cash, could you trade futures with that, and if so, how much futures margin would it support? And would you incur margin interest?
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If you have 100k that is not fully committed to stock margin (i.e.400k in stock or 200k overnight) then you are allowed to have a margined futures position. I found their margin computations to be pretty sophisticated.
 
Quote from Pabst:

If you have 100k that is not fully committed to stock margin (i.e.400k in stock or 200k overnight) then you are allowed to have a margined futures position. I found their margin computations to be pretty sophisticated.
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So if I had $100k in stock, no cash in account, no stock on margin, how much futures margin would that support?

And would it also be margin for trading when US stock market is closed, ie for HK futures?
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

So if I had $100k in stock, no cash in account, no stock on margin, how much futures margin would that support?

And would it also be margin for trading when US stock market is closed, ie for HK futures?
More...

Well AAA, I'm not a HK type of dude.:D
But for U.S. futures during the day you would have 75k of margin power and overnight 50k in margin power. I presume in HK you would have 50k. Your 100k in overnight U.S. stock would be margined at 50% leaving you 50k to trade that Hang Sang shit.
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

So if I had $100k in stock, no cash in account, no stock on margin, how much futures margin would that support?

And would it also be margin for trading when US stock market is closed, ie for HK futures?
More...

You would have 75k of available cash to margin. The remaining 25k is used to support your 100k stock position at 4-1 ratio.
 
ok, what if I have $100k in cash in the account, and buy $100k in stock during the day? What if I buy $200k in stock? Would it be $75 and $50k respectively? I can see I could get myself into real trouble with this. LOL.
 
Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

So if I had $100k in stock, no cash in account, no stock on margin, how much futures margin would that support?

And would it also be margin for trading when US stock market is closed, ie for HK futures?
More...

The figures I gave you were based on your original supposition of having 100k worth of stock in an account funded with 100k in cash. If you have 200k in stock on a 100k account during U.S. hours you have 50k in further margining power for daytrading futures, 100k in power for additional daytrading stock. After the close you would be maxed out though. You would require all 100k in cash for your 200k in stock.
 
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