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
weij said:
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?
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IB have excessive margin anyway which can become variable at times, brokers like AMP are better for this type of thing if you are trading close to the edge, there are ways to offset this problem but I'm not sure the architects will like me telling non-accredited how, sorry about that.
 
weij said:
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?
More...

What are you trading? Options? VIX instruments? Usually IB will require stricter margin requirements for these securities. And they do NOT take into account hedging. As long as they see that your position is too large in relative to how much cash you have in the account, they will force-liquidate at market price aka very bad price.

So the solution is like some has said here, 1) put in more money into your account and 2) trade smaller positions. Don't trust their advertised margin. They say you have 33% more margin to invest for example, that's BS in reality. In reality, they post a lot higher margin requirements so your buying power is lot less.
 
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weij said:
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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Search on DTCC for edu on margin, clearing and settlement info. They are upstream from IBKR.
 
weij said:
50% Options and 50% stocks. By each EOD I tried to reduce margin rate to 80% or less. But it would increase dramatically overnight.
More...

With options, assuming you are from the US, trading US options in the US, here is IB's margin requirement for options: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/...hm=us&ex=us&rgt=1&rsk=0&pm=1&rst=101004110808

Basically unless you are covered, as long as IB sees that you don't have money to satisfy any potential exercise or assignment of the options, it will force liquidate you. IB is very clear on that. I bet you it's the options that are f***ing you up.
 
Take away one vote from the "Never" choice", because I saw the poll but not realize it was about IB specifically until I read through the thread thoroughly, and I cannot cancel the vote. Sorry about that.
 
Overnight said:
Take away one vote from the "Never" choice", because I saw the poll but not realize it was about IB specifically until I read through the thread thoroughly, and I cannot cancel the vote. Sorry about that.
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Thanks for freaking up the results @Overnight, because of your one vote, you changed the results by like 25%. :p
 
How could it not be the options??

Hes obviously nude options


TheDawn said:
With options, assuming you are from the US, trading US options in the US, here is IB's margin requirement for options: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/...hm=us&ex=us&rgt=1&rsk=0&pm=1&rst=101004110808

Basically unless you are covered, as long as IB sees that you don't have money to satisfy any potential exercise or assignment of the options, it will force liquidate you. IB is very clear on that. I bet you it's the options that are f***ing you up.
More...
 
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