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:
Yes, I did. Please check my jounal: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/my-trade-journal.373250/
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That's barely the summary information. You need to look closely at the details.

Open your margin report and examine the section titled "Portfolio Margin Details". In there you'll see the product and class groups with charges for your individual positions. Also look at the section called "Margin overview by exchange"... there might be an IB house charge if they think you've got too much exposure of a certain kind. I'm guessing you have some kind of concentration in a risky/volatile product. Naked short puts on small biotechs maybe? Lol

Anyway you clearly aren't as well hedged as you think; at least not in IB's opinion. You need to play by their rules since they're extending the funding to you. Don't shoot the messenger.
 
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spy said:
That's barely the summary information. You need to look closely at the details.

Open your margin report and examine the section titled "Portfolio Margin Details". In there you'll see the product and class groups with charges for your individual positions. Also look at the section called "Margin overview by exchange"... there might be an IB house charge if they think you've got too much exposure of a certain kind. I'm guessing you have some kind of concentration in a risky/volatile product. Naked short puts on small biotechs maybe? Lol

Anyway you clearly aren't as well hedged as you think; at least not in IB's opinion. You need to play by their rules since they're extending the funding to you. Don't shoot the messenger.
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Thanks. I checked the details section and found Portfolio Group,Product Group,Bonds and Extreme Risk Additional Charge are all zero. The major part are from Class Group. The number is equal to the Maintenance Margin. Additionally Small Cap Concentration Charge contributes about half of the former.

Base Currency Summary
Portfolio Group 0.00
Product Group 0.00
Class Group 100
Bonds 0.00
Extreme Risk Additional Charge 0.00
Small Cap Concentration Charge 40
Total 140​


Under the class groups, all my positions were grouped by the underlings. But no more detailed granularity. Only the sum of each group is shown. Each option is listed, but with empty numbers. The sum of the margin is equal to the number of the class group. There is also a column "Extreme", with negative value and I didn't figure out what it is used for.
Class Groups
Name Description Symbol Quantity Margin Extreme
USD
ABCD 65 -93
EFGH 35 -25
Total 100 -118​


And finally the Margin Overview by Exchange
Margin Overview by Exchange
Exchanges Initial Maintenance
USD
IBHouse 50 45
OCC 62 55
Total 112 100
​
Yes, you are right. I was punished by concentration. But they are not small cap. They are very big companies and always in the top 10 actively trading list. Or here small cap is me?

But after all, nothing changed overnight and therefore the margin should not change a lot overnight either. No?

Any way, your advice is very valuable. Don't shoot the messenger is so true. But the messenger is vague and I struggled to understand him..
 
Today I got margin call again. It was post expiry margin deficit. As I mentioned earlier, IB doesn't show the impact to post expiry margin from a trade until the order is executed. It make it even harder to reduce the deficit. I managed to reduce the deficit by 70% but I couldn't reduce it further. All the later attempting order were rejected. And the liquidation transactions suggested IB think I need to bet on the direction on underlying price move. For ABCD IB sold calls and bought puts. For DEFG IB bought calls and sold puts. From my point of view, IB broke my delta neutral and made my portfolio vulnerable to price move. But when I tried to buy ABCD or sell DEFG, IB rejected the orders, saying it would cause post expiry margin deficit.
It is so wrong. IB should not force user to take side against their intention.
 
spy said:
Do they make margin calls on play money accounts?
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If the trader knows what they are doing, they margin call themselves in SIM after being reckless. It is why I am still an active trader with live. I learned what I can and cannot do. Got to know your limitations. It is all just math in the head on the Simulator. If you cannot figure the math in your head in sim, then don't bother with live and have the broker figure it out for you.
 
I suspect implied vol is at the core of your margining problem. IV is implied from market prices and feeds into their margin calculation. Two things might be happening: 1) IV generally increases as option duration declines and IBKR seems to calculate implied on a daily basis, not using nonlinear option time; 2) IV is highest around the open. My intuition from experience is 20 delta options in high IV names might have daily margin increases until they pass a declining OTM threshold.

Unfortunately IBKR doesn't disclose their margin formulas, just broad strokes on methodology, so it's hard to know exactly what causes strange behavior and nonlinearities.
 
Im good with TOS...

I find it hard to believe you are trading PM and have these issues


weij said:
I didn't expect such would happen.You have better recommendations?
And I tried to understand the rules behind so later I can better work with them.
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