Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Watch out for margin calls. The intraday margin is removed during the day (at Interactive Brokers). Never saw this happening during the day. One Dax contract is now nearly 30k.
As the overnight price of the Dax future went down with the flash crash
to 11600 - the cash price lo during the day was 12196.
Awaiting still a price lower than 12k.
Yes - margins are going up with the index. Means much higher now than 10 years back. US and EU.
The intraday margins are provided under normal circumstances. When prices are playing games up
and down - then the margins may go up again and intraday they disappear to get some volumes
out of the market.
Such behavior on the DAX can be found 2008 and 2011 as well...
Just beware when a Index pushes over 1.x% per day - then the broker will block from its side.
(...coins even worse!)
For example when you have 25k on your account. And you are in the market with 1 fdax. The normal intraday margin would be around 14k. Which leaves you with 11k of headroom.
In others years when the dax did 1% or more on a daily basis. The margins were adjusted on daily basis, but never during the day. If you go smooth every night, that is no problem.
If they change this during the day, you could have a margin call. Even if you are in a winning position, they will liquidate your position. Because the margin will go to 30k and that is above your 25k you have on your account.
I was surprised to see the margin removed during the day. Maybe others experienced this before but I never saw that in the last 8 years.
You are right - IB is more restrictive concerning margins in the last 2 years - maybe governance protection needed that.
On the other hand - if you are willing to trade with 14k on a 25k account then you are already on the risky side - why
not trade the FXDM (5x leverage) instead of the FDAX (25x leverage) to adjust to your liquidity?
Of course I know about the costs and slippage...
Was only a hint for rough times as we can see them right now.