Margin spiked against my short puts

T

tonyf

Underlying's market cap dropped below $500m. IBKR spiked the market overnight way in excess of OCC rules provisioning in full for the shares as if they went down to 0.

A Small Cap Concentration Charge from what I understand.

Helpline not really helpful. Would old timers here help me understand under which circumstances IB would spike the margin requirements in such fashion?
 
sucks. what was the underlying? I called IB and asked if there is some formula I can use to calculate margin requirements without having to interactively query their systems and the guy said there wasnt. There should be
 
They usually give a warning for that kind of thing.
I at least think there should be a contract of margin required at trade opening vs now
 
there is a reason they say you put your house up to gain a bicycle when selling options.

it's negligible a clearing firm let you trade not knowing margins can basically go ballistic on you without notice. but if read i bet they did warn you in the fine print, they all have that in there. in fact they will liquidate your trades if they feel in danger.
 
"i bet they did warn you in the fine print, they all have that in there. in fact they will liquidate your trades if they feel in danger."

In theory, they can change the margin requirements in the middle of the day.
 
tonyf said:
I m good at writing otm puts and dont eant to stop doing it. Is tgere a safer way forward witha PM account?
More...

PM can actually have worse margin requirements than Reg T. Constantly recalculated based on "concentration risk" and undecipherable algos. Maybe best bet is just have a cash account and not use margin at all. Safer, anyway. ;)
 
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