Yeah i used IB for 15 years, been very impressed with the Rithmic Platform so far, since i began using them in August this year. Rithmic has not let me down yet. But AMP have, twice! They been late activating day trade margin a couple of times. eg Instead of cancelling overnight margin rates at 9:30 on the dot, and activating day trading rates, they activated it at 9:35 or something. This happened once in the US market timeframe and once in the European markets. Whereas firms like IB and Rithmic are slick operations and have almost everything automated. I get the feeling AMP still do many things a bit manually. This can lead to human error mistakes more often.
From what I have learned, Amp's daytrading margins (for futures) kick in at 6 PM ET, and last until 3:55 PM ET that trading day. "Overnight" margins are effective from 3:55 PM ET until 6 PM ET. @AMP_Global Please verify.
You are talking about 9:30 AM. I am talking about 6PM. Quite a difference there. The "ad hoc" stuff you are talking about has happened only 2-3 times this year, due to potential market-moving extreme events. Thus the temporary wackiness. Like March 2020. What a trip! But we still need confirmation on the standard M.O. Let's wait for @AMP_Global to respond.
Look it happened to me twice, i dont need to wait for AMP to respond. Once in the RTY, they extended overnight timing for RTY margin to 9:30, but didnt actually get around to changing it until around 9:35. So i couldnt trade the open at full size. For some reason only the RTY was effected by the timing change for a few days. The same thing happend to me once in the DAX. I had to wait several minutes after the open to get day trading margin rates. The issue isnt that it happens rarely, its that it wasnt implemented properly during those rare times.
Margins Explanation: (Maintenance vs. DayTrade) Maintenance Margin is set by the exchange. This is the amount required to carry a contract past the daily close. DayTrade Margin is set by AMP. This is the amount required to enter into a position per contract on an intraday basis. These margins are in effect anytime the market is open (Both US Day and Overnight Sessions), except the last 5 minutes of each trading session. AMP request that you either flatten open positions or meet the exchange required maintenance margin during this time period. So once the market re-opens, after the daily close....back to Day Trade Margins until the next daily close: https://www.ampfutures.com/trading-info/margins/ Correct, if market conditions require us to adjust margins, we will update the AMP Margins page.