What are intial and maintenance margins?

B

bourbon

What are intial and maintenance margins?

please be gentle :)

Does it mean you need to have both amounts as backup in your account at all times?
 
Initial margin is the amount you need to put on the trade and maintenance margin is the minimum amount to hold it. If you go below maintenance then you may have to liquidate the position or deposit more funds.

If you are just daytrading electronic futures then most firms don't use these margin requirements; they let you trade in and out with much less provided you don't hold past the close.

-when trading futures you don't actually use your funds to buy and sell anything. you just post margin amounts.
 
just initial

but if account ends up below maintenance
you have to wire money to get it to initial margin level
or just close your position.
 
One other thing, for initial margin you can put your money in T-bills and get some interest. Most brokers count 95% of the T-bill value toward the initial margin. For the maintenance margin you need to have that in the account as cash.
 
Quote from 40yotrader:

One other thing, for initial margin you can put your money in T-bills and get some interest. Most brokers count 95% of the T-bill value toward the initial margin. For the maintenance margin you need to have that in the account as cash.
More...

cool...but what's a T-bill :D
 
Quote from 40yotrader:

One other thing, for initial margin you can put your money in T-bills and get some interest. Most brokers count 95% of the T-bill value toward the initial margin. For the maintenance margin you need to have that in the account as cash.
More...

Don't you mean cash for the maintenance margin minus the initial margin?
 
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