Margin Increase

qlai said:
Well, I am surprised to hear this from you. I don’t think it’s common practice in equities to reduce leverage on existing positions. How are you going to model that into your portfolio? This is one of the reasons I don’t like trading futures - they allow you to leverage up and then pull the rug under you at the worst moment.
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My book holds equities and options in a portfolio margin account. Since margin maintenance is aggregated, I simply sell down assets that require a high margin relative to upside (as simple as that really).

Not sure about commodities or futures neither.
 
tonyf said:
Guys relax - You have sufficient time to manage your exposure. And the increase will be gradual over 25 days (35%/25 = 1.4% per day).

If your ship is that tight, you have more serious issues to worry about and thank IB for doing the risk management for you.
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Guys, relax - just make 35% less profits for no good reason whatsoever. If your ship is that tight, you should thank IB for screwing you up the *** and loosening you up a bit.
 
IB is going crazy. I am not sure what kind of specialists work in the risk department but they must be really scared ...

As an example the margin value for Gasoline inter-delivery spread Nov 20 - Dec 20

CME Exchange requires - 2,475 USD
Gain Capital requires - 2,475 USD
Interactive brokers requires - 5,242 USD

More than double? Right ..

It is really a stupid thing to have all the money with IB. Quite happy now having 3 futures brokers while considering the risk as having "one account" virtually split to 3 parts. Money transfers are really fast
 
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Examples of the margin increases projected for some of the more widely held products:
https://ibkr.info/node/3529
 
Lots of people run on margin but I wonder how many run so tightly that this is an issue. Personally, I am conservative and run at margin plus 15% + 30%, i.e. whatever the margin, set it to an additional 15%, which is where I stop loss, and another 30% so I can keep trading. (the 30% includes another 15% stop loss margin, i.e. compounded)

Getting a FAST market and a VOLATILE market, is hard enough to navigate. Add Margin call potential and it so much pressure, mistakes are waiting, imo.

There is this saying about flying planes. If there is bad weather, and the pilot is not 100% ( sick, or distracted) and there is mechanical failure, there is a 90% chance of a crash. I don't want to "crash" my account so before inevitable things happen I prepare for them.

PS: Some of the best fishing I have has is in bad weather, likewise some of the best trading I have had is in fast volatile market.
 
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