Upgraded from cash to margin account. Question!

Investordestor said:
Overnight didn’t help. Even several overnights not. And yes recently I have sold some positions and bought some other but it didn’t help.

Anytime I sold something my buying power went up something like 4 times the cash I got from selling but when I bought another stock it dropped with cash one on one. Very strange this. Does IBKR give you only margin on certain large cap/high volume stock and not the small/micro cap I tend to buy?
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Are you better off buying power wise? before or after the margin change ?? might just have to accept it is what it is and be kinda happy, but not happy sadly.

No experience of IBKR and it seems neither does anyone else.

Nothing is ever easy :(
 
Investordestor said:
Hi there,

I hope you guys can help me with this one because I can’t figure it out.

I recently upgraded my IBKR EUR cash account to a margin account. I currently have about 55.000 euro’s worth of US stocks, 6.000 euro’s worth of US dollars cash and I own 4 (long) M6E EUR/USD futures contracts to hedge my currency risk (I am eurozone based).

So 55.000 + 6.000 makes 61.000 in assets. With a reg T margin account I should be getting twice the buying power right? (for overnight anyway). So 122.000. But IBKR says I only have a buying power of 27.600. How is that possible? I don’t get it.

Thanks for the help guys!
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Open "What If" window, it will ask to prepopulate with portfolio positions. Press Yes.
Then open last tab on the right "Margins Sensivity"
It shows margins for every position you hold.
Check which position shows increased margin requirements.
 
Varijotas said:
Open "What If" window, it will ask to prepopulate with portfolio positions. Press Yes.
Then open last tab on the right "Margins Sensivity"
It shows margins for every position you hold.
Check which position shows increased margin requirements.
More...

Thank you Varijotas for trying to help and I looked it up but it said nowhere in that menu what the margin requirements were for all my positions. The only tabs that were there are changes in maintenance and initial margin. But not maintenance and initial margin required for a individual stock.
sCgFv3D


Is there perhaps a page on the IBKR website that lets you lookup the margin requirement of individual stocks. Perhaps I can solve this puzzle that way.
 
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Investordestor said:
Thank you Varijotas for trying to help and I looked it up but it said nowhere in that menu what the margin requirements were for all my positions. The only tabs that were there are changes in maintenance and initial margin. But not maintenance and initial margin required for a individual stock.
sCgFv3D


Is there perhaps a page on the IBKR website that lets you lookup the margin requirement of individual stocks. Perhaps I can solve this puzzle that way.
More...

Open that window and look at "Nominal Margin Interval %"
Most of stocks are 25%, but some have increased up to 100%

I can't open the image you attached.
 
I'm new to IB and worried about the margin liquidation problem a lot. Have read lots of pages about margin and still working on it.

Maybe you can try the link below from IB Margin Education Center with detailed examples.
https://www.interactivebrokers.eu/fr/?f=24862

IB basically calculate futures(commodities) and securities margin individually. Futures margin mainly based on Exchanges' and IB's margin rate which you can find it here:
https://www.interactivebrokers.co.uk/en/index.php?f=37725#margin-matrix

Other than futures, securities margin mainly based on regT, which NORMALLY gives investors 2X leverage overnight and 4X for intraday and active traders. Looking for Buying Power in this IB margin webinar link:
https://www.interactivebrokers.eu/es/?f=3983

As my understanding so far, IB counts only CURRENT AVAILABLE FUNDS to calculate Buying Power. CURRENT AVAILABLE FUNDS also have different calculation in futures and securities. You can find the CURRENT AVAILABLE FUNDS definitions here:
https://www.interactivebrokers.com/...eactivitymonitoring/available_for_trading.htm
 
Does IBKR restrict margin on stocks with low trading volume and/or tiny market caps?

Because if I open a position in Apple in my paper trading account I got 2x leverage overnight but when I buy for example Mammoth Energy Services Inc (TUSK) it says under 'Buy pwr' that I have 4x leverage until I start filling my portfolio with TUSK shares and the available margin starts erroding until my entire portfolio is filled with TUSK shares bought with my own cash and 'Buy pwr' says 0.

Can somebody comment on this or double check that they got the same results?
 
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