What is the most you've been margined?

DisciplinedHedg · Jun 6, 2003

Trading stocks or futures, whats the most you've been margined out?

I think for me via futures its been almost 15x my account size.

Very very brief though, and sweating all of the way. The little angel on my shoulder says to me - WTF are you thinking you moron - during those times. The devil inside says - Attaboy, pump it up baby!

prox · Jun 6, 2003

I think I've traded 3 ES contracts with a $5000 account on $1750? IB margin .. how do I calculate how much I had leveraged ?

DblArrow · Jun 6, 2003

Had just over $5600 in IB account and traded 4 ZB at the time it was $1350 per intraday. Took two tics panicked and bailed. But the quick $250 got me hooked and now I have a real problem at times.

Make em' pretty, Chris

Kap · Jun 6, 2003

Writing uncovered call options with exploding volatility hence the 220,000K margin call one day before expiry. Gamma trading ouch !

lescor · Jun 7, 2003

I'm 23:1 right now. Various non-directional arbitrage trades. No sweat.

thetraderprofit · Jun 7, 2003

Infinity to 1.

had no $ in my account and $400k in positions

Kap · Jun 7, 2003

Quote from lescor:

I'm 23:1 right now. Various non-directional arbitrage trades. No sweat.

Just out of interest, what type of arbitrage, most seem to be just stock pickers on here, I myself do index arbitrage.

Wonderduck · Jun 7, 2003

Quote from DisciplinedHedg:

Trading stocks or futures, whats the most you've been margined out?

I think for me via futures its been almost 15x my account size. Very very brief though, and sweating all of the way. The little angel on my shoulder says to me - WTF are you thinking you moron - during those times. The devil inside says - Attaboy, pump it up baby!

20:1

Southpaw · Jun 8, 2003

Back in 99, I ran my stock account up to a little over $1mil. fully margined all the way. I remember talking about my margin balance with my buddy and he said I was crazy. He was right. I lost half my account in about 2 weeks in March of 2K and the rest of the account over the next 4 months. It was a great ride and I felt rich for a few months. Now if only I knew what I was doing, I'd be retired by now. Hopefully I can catch the next bull run and get out near the top and not ride it all the way back down.