suffering from margin call constantly

Was your margin fluctuated significantly overnight?

  • Yes, always

    Votes: 3 13.6%

  • Yes, quite often

    Votes: 1 4.5%

  • Sometime

    Votes: 2 9.1%

  • Rarely

    Votes: 4 18.2%

  • Never

    Votes: 12 54.5%
  • Total voters
    22
W

weij

In the recent a few months, I suffered from margin call almost every trading day. Although from my point of view my portfolio is hedged well and I tried to reduce the margin as much as I could before the eod (quite often with the "help" from IB's forcing liquidation), the margin would still explode overnight and in the next morning I would see my account was with margin deficit again, from 20% ~ 60% over my total equity. Then I was given 10 minutes to fix the problem, which was often not successful because my attempted order was often rejected because IB think such order would cause margin deficit increase. And often the liquidation would kick in and I have to spend another a few hours to clean up the mess caused by the liquidation. Some times I couldn't fix it well - the market bounced back right after IB liquidated my position at a very bad price. In the Friday it would be even harder because there would be an additional post expiry margin deficit. I have no way to see the impact to such margin from the order at all, until the order was actually executed.

I composed several tickets to IB CS but so far I didn't get good answer. They usually just replied with generic information like what margin call is or why there would be liquidation when there was margin deficit. They would not disclose the details on how they calculate the margins, only saying it is their portfolio or risk based margin. BTW the link in their page to the "OCC's published list of Product Groups and Offset Parameters" is dead https://www.interactivebrokers.co.u...ex=us&rgt=1&rsk=0&pm=1&rst=101004010808010801

Anyone has the similar experience here? Can you advise how would you deal with such annoyance?
 
Is it better today than it was last week? I know IB margin requirements seem to increase into options expiration and then as the options expire, including if they were assigned, tends to then be lower afterwards.

but no, I Haven’t noticed large margin changes separate from investment performance or trading.
 
What are you trading? Stocks and ETFs? Or futures and stock options?
My rule of thumb on my futures account: ensure that the "initial margin requirement" never exceeds the account value ("net liquidation value"). Preferably don't have it exceed 90% of NLV. On my stocks & ETF account I don't use margin, don't buy more than the account value.
You can check these values before you enter an order in TWS: click the "what if .." button and it shows you how those margin requirements change if the order were executed.
 
HobbyTrading said:
What are you trading? Stocks and ETFs? Or futures and stock options?
My rule of thumb on my futures account: ensure that the "initial margin requirement" never exceeds the account value ("net liquidation value"). Preferably don't have it exceed 90% of NLV. On my stocks & ETF account I don't use margin, don't buy more than the account value.
You can check these values before you enter an order in TWS: click the "what if .." button and it shows you how those margin requirements change if the order were executed.
More...
yes, it works for initial margin and maintenance margin. But not for post-expiry margin.
 
HobbyTrading said:
What are you trading? Stocks and ETFs? Or futures and stock options?
My rule of thumb on my futures account: ensure that the "initial margin requirement" never exceeds the account value ("net liquidation value"). Preferably don't have it exceed 90% of NLV. On my stocks & ETF account I don't use margin, don't buy more than the account value.
You can check these values before you enter an order in TWS: click the "what if .." button and it shows you how those margin requirements change if the order were executed.
More...
50% Options and 50% stocks. By each EOD I tried to reduce margin rate to 80% or less. But it would increase dramatically overnight.
 
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