Problems trading futures in IRA accounts at IB?

SideShowBob said:
I have not tried to document it but the margins were different overnight as of last month -- it may have changed and we all know they won't say a thing either way. I only know because I've had problems in my smallest IRA account with margin when I enter trades at night (which execute fine during the day). The margins are just ridiculously excessive at this point, for my smaller IRAs I'm going to have to move elsewhere -- I don't ride anywhere close to the limits but I can barely trade with these margins.
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I'm in the process of using Midland IRA so I can open a futures account where I want to. I'm not going to trade my RothIra myself. I'm going to choose a few managers. My account will be at FC Stone but Midland Ira will provide all the filings as FC Stone does not accept IRAs directly.
 
Can anyone say if IB has gone so insanely conservative in terms of risk parameters for legit exchange SPAN spread margin credits for spread positions in IRA accounts ?
 
I don't trade futures in my IRA account but I just put a fake ES future option order and it was accepted and then after 2 minutes I cancelled it.
 
I don't want to go off the subject but iust look at my option trades today. Look at the commissions. The negative numbers are rebates. That makes me addicted to IB :)
 

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rmorse said:
I don't believe IB offers different margin for daytrading vs overnight. The best way to determine your margin requirement is to stage an order and "Check Margin Impact" as Trader13 pointed out, because margin can change at IB. It is not based on Exchange margin and can change with market conditions.
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My knowledge is much much less than yours in terms of margin requirements and trading futures but as far as I know , IB DOES require different margin for futures (like ES as I have traded it just a few times) during the trading hours and keeping the position overnight. When I used to trade it in like 2011 it was about $2500 and $4000 for overnight.
 
If IB has increased margin rate and if I want to be careful in trading, I would also be cautious. I would assume they know more than I and they know that market might become more volatile in the near future so I would not use full margin and just inch up my cautiousness.
 
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