Quote from gkishot:
The interest is charged only if the cash account balance is negative. Other brokers don't settle stocks every day as cash. Stocks are not marked to market.
The only value that changes every day is the total net liquidation value of all long and short positions.
If you sell stock short its proceeds are added to the cash balance and it stays unchanged whether stock moves up or down.
The broker does not have to charge the interest on short positions if he uses the total portfolio value as collateral. That's what the marginable securities are for.
Quote from blackjack007:
if you have $50k cash and you buy more than $50k worth of stocks, you will be charged interest. it doesn't matter if your account is pm or reg-t.
pm lets you borrow more but it is not interest-free!
Quote from gkishot:
It will charge you on 100k margin.
Cash Account = 100k ( initial cash account ) - 200k ( long stocks ) + 200k ( short proceeds ) - 200k ( short positions )
= -100K
Quote from yip1997:
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Thanks. Let me see if I can construct a portfolio to long QQQQ without paying interest here with higher leverage.
Suppose I short $600K of QID.
Cash account = 100K (initial cash) + 600K (short proceeds) - 600K (short positions).
So I don't have to pay any interest for a porfolio with roughly 12x QQQQ. Am i right?
Quote from gkishot:
You are right, but if qqqq moves down and qid moves up to let's say 800k worth of value you will have to pay interest on 100k.
Cash account = 100k + 600k ( short proceeds ) - 800k ( short position adjustment ) = -100k.
This is just an example of how margin interest is calculated. As far as I understand they will also pay interest on 600k proceeds.
Short position adjustment is updated daily based on the market price moves.
Quote from gkishot:
So you are saying only short stocks are required to be marked to market?
What about other long stocks that might have settled with $60,000 profit and erased all those losses?
Does IB adjust up the cash balance by the long stocks market value?