Simplest way to identify initial margin offenders with IB?

T

tonyf

My initial margin is well above my maintenance margin at about 1.7x
The portfolio is reasonably diverse and made of multiple asset classes. What is the easiest way of identifying the specific securities in a PM account that are draining the initial margin?
 
This is going to vary from broker to broker. The OCC does not require "initial" and "maintenance" for PMA. This is a term your current broker is using. The OCC only calculates your OCC PM requirement after the close. Then your broker will have their own house requirement either live or overnight. Lightspeed introduces business to Wedbush Securities. For the overnight requirement, we start with the OCC requirement, then there are house add-ons. The house add-ons are from symbols Wedbush or Lightspeed do not want to offer full leverage on overnight. Once that is added, for accounts under $5mm, we then add 20% for overnight risk. On our web portal, we offer a risk system call Sterling Risk Monitor (SRM). It shows a live estimate of current OCC and House requirements. The house requirement is based on a file we get from Wedbush including expected PM add-ons. That way you can view which symbols have a higher requirement. For a Reg-T account, the process is very simple while using Lightspeed Trader, as the Market Maker window clearly displays how marginable a symbol is. E.G., 25%, 50%, 100% etc. These are often clues toward symbols in a PMA, but the file is not the same.
 
tonyf said:
My initial margin is well above my maintenance margin at about 1.7x
The portfolio is reasonably diverse and made of multiple asset classes. What is the easiest way of identifying the specific securities in a PM account that are draining the initial margin?
More...

TWS > Account > Risk Report > Margin report
 
TWS API scheme:
Get the initial margin of the portfolio
Send an order to purchase 100 XYZ at last price (whatIf feature is set to true)
Get the new margin
Deduce the margin for $100 of XYZ

Margin varies with time. I don't know an easier way.
 
Robert Morse said:
This is going to vary from broker to broker. The OCC does not require "initial" and "maintenance" for PMA. This is a term your current broker is using. The OCC only calculates your OCC PM requirement after the close. Then your broker will have their own house requirement either live or overnight. Lightspeed introduces business to Wedbush Securities. For the overnight requirement, we start with the OCC requirement, then there are house add-ons. The house add-ons are from symbols Wedbush or Lightspeed do not want to offer full leverage on overnight. Once that is added, for accounts under $5mm, we then add 20% for overnight risk. On our web portal, we offer a risk system call Sterling Risk Monitor (SRM). It shows a live estimate of current OCC and House requirements. The house requirement is based on a file we get from Wedbush including expected PM add-ons. That way you can view which symbols have a higher requirement. For a Reg-T account, the process is very simple while using Lightspeed Trader, as the Market Maker window clearly displays how marginable a symbol is. E.G., 25%, 50%, 100% etc. These are often clues toward symbols in a PMA, but the file is not the same.
More...

Why for accounts smaller than 5m only? What about larger ones?
 
betcashrun said:
TWS API scheme:
Get the initial margin of the portfolio
Send an order to purchase 100 XYZ at last price (whatIf feature is set to true)
Get the new margin
Deduce the margin for $100 of XYZ

Margin varies with time. I don't know an easier way.
More...
This. is how to do it.
 
I am not familiar with risk navigator. Can it be used to stress test the margin to find the culprit easily?
If so, how please?
 
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