CME just put out a clarification on the margin changes. Initial margin reduced. http://www.cmegroup.com/tools-information/lookups/advisories/clearing/files/Chadv11-400.pdf
Probably a good idea for most traders. No need to leverage something that is already leveraged. Baby steps folks.
So that alarmist rag ZH breaks this story, all the comments insinuate this is some contrived margin call to squeeze long metals positions. Now they flip-flop and imply the change will cause a gross expansion of risk as if speculators will suddenly open positions Monday with the windfall expansion of leverage the disparity between initial/maint offers them. In their infinite stupidity ZH fails to mention with the exception of a few products "evil" exchange members never have to post initial margin to begin with (only maintenance). So IMO this is just a protection being offered to retail accounts facing liquidation through no fault of their own because of MF transfers. I can't believe anyone reads this shit. This is a nonevent and just a small temporary added protection for the little guy, kudos to CME.
Agreed - the last thing I would expect CME to do is to disrupt orderly markets. That is the opposite of what they want. This is a temporary accommodation, so that firms which require 100% of Initial margin for overnite positions are not forced to liquidate their newly-acquired MF clients' positions immediately upon receiving the account. Many firms require 100% of Initial margin to carry an overnite position (mine does), but apparently MF did not - creating a problem for the transfer process. Keep in mind that most risk-management systems would not trim a position until it was back within margin guidelines - it would just liquidate the entire position immediately. So rather than trying to re-write everyone's risk-management software over the weekend, it's just easier to lower margins to avoid mass auto-liquidation.