You can if: 1. It is not one stock but a diversity of stocks. 2. You avoid cheap 100% margin stocks and stocks with 5 standard price deviations more than 15%. Be aware that there are cases when your regT margin is lower than PM margin if you are not well diversified or own more than .5% of a stock shares outstanding.
ids, Regarding #2, is there an available list of stocks that would qualify. I understand that these get recalculated regularly, but what I am looking for is a way to know the margin requirement for a particular security before I place the trade. Echo
It is a PORTFOLIO margining. It means there is no way to calculate margin for a particular position. Just try to be diverse and lower your risk and PM will drop accordingly.
I understand the significance of the word PORTFOLIO. What I am looking for is a way to know the total portfolio margin requirements if a new additional position is added, before putting on that particular additional position. Say I have 15 positions, reasonably diversified, in the current portfolio, and I want to add #16, is there a tool that can be used to estimate the impact of this on margin requirements. This would help avoid any nasty surprise margin calls. With RegT, this is easy to estimate. It seems that you are saying that there is no available tool to estimate this. Correct? Echo
Did you try to create an order, right click mouse, and choose "Check Margin"? It works with all kinds of margins.
I do not currently have an account with IB. I am currently looking at opening an account, hence the reason for my questions. I will download the demo TWS and try this. Thanks Echo
Suppose initially I have $100K, and my account is enabled for pm. I then buy $200K value of diversified stocks, and short sell $200K value of another set of diversified stocks. How will ib charge me interest?