After trading with IB for 10+ years, I am still not 100% sure what their auto liquidation rules are. I've been carefully managing my risk to avoid it, but I always feel it is simply impossible to control everything and manage all the risks in all occasions.. For example, I wonder whether anybody has experience in below situation: Let's say I only have two different products A and B in a Portfolio Margin account. The two products can be cross-margined so I could be potentially using a large leverage. Product A only trades in RTH, but B has extended trading hours. If B moves against me outside RTH such that the Current Excess Liquidity drops below zero, would IB auto liquidate B during extended trading hours (obviously A cannot be liquidated as it trades only in RTH), even that would cause an increase in maintenance margin and thus even more negative Current Excess Liquidity? Many thanks!
Call them on the phone and ask. Talk to their risk management department. After 10+ years they have not given you an answer?
Many thanks for your kind advice. No I haven't got any clear answer since I had the question 2 years ago, so I am curious whether anybody has any experience in such situation.
Hi Ids, I was curious about this as well. You say you won't make auto liquidations that increase maintenance margin, but what about those that don't, in reference to non standard trading hours. For example if I have a portfolio margin account where I am short SPX options and long SPY options. The SPX options are traded overnight and there is a large market move that substantially increases the value of my short SPX options. Is there any chance you would auto liquidate here? It would potentially reduce my margin as shorts were being covered.
It was my understanding that IB would never auto-liquidate something outside of normal market hours for that security. It would be good to know this for sure though.
It is definitely our intention to not auto-liquidate outside of normal market hours or even outside of most liquid hours. I cannot issue a stronger statement by formal reasons.
You truly work for IB? With that level of typing ability? No offense intended, but something is very off in the way you have been typing out your responses in this thread. Standards must be dropping in the world, for company reps to, um, represent companies. Yikes.
I have been auto liquidated a few of times in the past while day tarding and it has always been during RTH, 15 minutes before the US close in fact.