Interactive Brokers
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kbloor said:Hi there,
Just a question about margin requirements - I'm interested in the YM. Your site says the margin requirements for the mini-dow contracts are:
Intraday initial 1219
Intraday maintenance 975
Overnight initial 2438
Overnight maintenance 1950
Then another page says this:
All Futures products will be margined at 50% of the normal margin requirements during normal liquid trading hours for each product type. Each day at 15 minutes before the close of the normal trading session for a product, margin requirements will revert back to the 100% requirement until the opening of normal trading hours the next day. Margin requirements will always be applied at 100% for all spread transactions.
I'm just trying to get clear exactly how much margin is required and it would help if you could spell out to me whether I'm correct/incorrect in describing the margin requirement in this way:
The way I read your site means that on market open until 15:45 EST (or earlier in the case of early closing) I would need 1219/2 = $609.50 per contract in an IB account to open a position, and to stay in the market I would need a minimum of 975/2 = $487.50 per open position as my account value? (This is of course subject to your minimum account funding requirements too). And if I were to trade just before market close (say 10 minutes before) I'd need $1219 per contract to open a position and $975 per contract traded as my minimum account value to keep it in the market?
If you could confirm whether I was correct or clarify what the actual situation would be that would help me a lot - many thanks.
Overnight is full, intra day is 50%
1219 is 50% of 2438
975 is 50% of 1950
2438 = full
1950 = full