AMP not supporting exchange spread margin

Advantage, Rosenthal Collins, RJO know how to correctly margin spread traders intraday

 

But what about for the overnight hold? That is my issue.

 

Yes of course. A good portion of their clients are commercial and spec spread traders.

 

I don't trade "exchange-traded spreads". I mentioned that at the very top of my journal when asked. My legs are manual.

 

I advise ALL of my clients to dispense with discount brokers. They’re worst than useless for a spread trader. I do not have any haircut or promotion arrangements with any broker or clearing firm.

Execution does NOT matter in terms of overnight margin. Advantage gives my manual spreaders 4 x intraday buying power and then applies the appropriate SPAN calculated offset credits on the evening.pdf Statement. You will get an overnight margin credit regardless of how it was executed.

If you are leaving legs exposed and unhedged for protracted periods of time then any Risk Manager is going to have issues with you.

Proper Spread Traders require a DIRECT FCM who knows how to correctly service them.

 

I'm not a spread trader, by your definition, IIRC.

 

It doesn’t have anything to do with what “my” definition of a spread trader is.

If you are carrying a SPAN-recognized position then clearing member firms are obligated by exchange bylaws to assign you a margin credit - doesn’t matter if the exchange legged your spread or TT Autospreader legged your spread or if you manually legged your spread all by yourself. I’ve been assigned margin credits for spread positions with slightly (or not so slightly) different hedge ratios than listed by the exchange.

Now, if you are riding naked unhedged legs for two or three hours and then adding a hedge 20 minutes before the close - then yes, your Broker will certainly treat those legs as outright risk on an intraday basis; but they are obligated to assign you a SPAN Margin offset credit on your Daily Statement. Now, if you put on one leg during one trading session and put on the hedge during a subsequent trading session then yes there will be a delay of one day where you see your SPAN offset - but you will indeed get one assigned.

 

Well, then I suppose AMP does not fit any of those categories, because they told me on the phone that they do not recognize margin credits on outright future legs, even if they fit into the intra-spread definition of the CME. Sux.

 

Wow. If only there were an alternative to AMP