Anyone @IBKR notice substantially higher margin on CL futures, initial margins were doubled to over $10k without any notice Also no day margins offered (they were available last week)? PS - There was no notification - IBKR used to be much better at phasing in changes and notifying clients. This is highly uncompetitive vs every other broker offering 4950/4500
I don't follow CL much but what particularly concerns me are unannounced margin requirement changes. Some call me an IB fan boy, and I am for good reasons , but among some other issues, this is an issue of grave concern to me as well. I specifically relate this to the margin change announcement not the absolute levels of margin which IB is entitled to set at any level it sees fit
Is this not normal? I can only think of one broker who told me about margin changes (Tradestation during the crazy 2018 CL times). I've never gotten a margin update from any other futures broker I was with. I say this because brokers are generally free to set their own margins and they are often times nuts (looking at you TDA).
It might well be normal, I was not saying IB does anything wrong and I know IB changes margins unannounced in those contracts I actively trade, I have just never been impacted because I don't lever up beyond 10:1 of account balance ever. But I have concerns when it comes to spreads and pairs that may otherwise highly correlate but if only one leg's margin requirements are changed all of a sudden I see how issues may arise for some. I wish IB would actually automate the announcement of margin changes by streaming them into the announcement tab of tws of all contracts where a user is holding positions in.
Agree ridiculous. We trading CL and noticed it last week as well. We now reduced leverage because of that.
IB has always been about getting their vig off of your dollars and they do that by increased margin rates. Also it does help them protect themselves from "rogue trading", but that isn't much of an issue nowadays because technology allows them to monitor everyone and liquidate anyone who violates a threshold level. I haven't had an account with IB in over 15 or so years and I've done just fine without their commission discounts.
We can provide low day trading margins for CL https://optimusfutures.com/Margin-Rates.php go to energies.
I would imagine there was a lot of forced liquidation when we had the huge gap up a couple of weeks ago. Would be a lot more helpful if instead of increasing margin requirements, they would set account minimums to trade certain contracts.
Same situation here. Initial Margin 9,2k EUR / Maint. Margin 6,1k EUR. Compare to CME base requirement of 4,1k EUR. I was also quite surprised to see they use the overnight margins for the day session. Thanks for opening this thread, it helped me a bit knowing I'm not the only one.