No Futures Trading Margin on IB today

[cdcaveman]

Your right... So I can't answer your question

 

[Overnight]

Maintenance margin is what the exchange charges the clearing place or whomever to hold your positions into the market close.

Day-trading margin is a discount passed unto you, the holder of the contract(s), by the broker, and they assume the rest of the risk associated with your positions you currently have. So if you have a position that requires $10K margin and you have $5K in your bank, but the broker says you need only $500 to hold it, then they are fronting the other $4,500 on your behalf.

That is the very very basics of it.

 

[Overnight]

What does removing intraday margin mean exactly?

Suppose the notional value of a futures contract is $100k. Does it mean when I initiate a new position in this contract, I must have $100k cash on hand?

Ack, stop with notional value! With pure futures, notional value means nada!

 

[southall]

What does removing intraday margin mean exactly?

Suppose the notional value of a futures contract is $100k. Does it mean when I initiate a new position in this contract, I must have $100k cash on hand?

Before this change a US index futures contract at IB had max 40:1 leverage intra day and 20:1 overnight.

For a notional 100K contract this would mean $2500 maintenace margin for intraday and $5000 for overnight.

Now both overnight and intra day maintenance margin would be set at 20:1, both $5000 dollars

IB dont appear to use exchange margin for US SIFs like ES, they seem to use a fixed ratio, currently it is 20:1.
For the european DAX index futures the leverage IB offer is currently even lower at around 13:1.

 

[Rickshaw Man]

if your trading overnight its best not to trade with IB as they will almost without notice raise your margin and liqudate you.. this might seem reasonable but it does not give you a chance to reduce your position in a orderly fashion , they will liqudate you at the very very worse price indiscrimately and you will have no choice which positions they sell off..

How correct you are, just raised CBOT YM the dow mini by 40%, need close to 10k to hold one contract overnight.