Moderator ... this thread has become a joke. It has a slanderous name but was started by a guy who's since apologised for the way it was started and even called the material originator's motivations into question. Since then its just attracted the usual sad contributions from people who either work for other brokers or felt that there failure at some point was IB's fault not their own. You might close it or, in my opinion, you are guilty of the slander. But then again ... maybe elite trader is just entertainment (desperate housewives becomes desperate ????).
lol...this is a sure sign that the thread has become pointless. king, I enjoy reading your fake-jive rants in Chit-Chat, but you shouldn't venture into the trading part of this site. Just a bit of friendly advice. I ask you now, have you ever had an account at IB?
Not according to the IB web site: "Margin is calculated on a real-time basis with automatic liquidation ensuring that IB does not have to spread the cost of credit losses to our customers like other brokers". Besides, American-style options may be exercised at any time between the date of purchase and the expiration date.
Quote from dis: Not according to the IB web site: "Margin is calculated on a real-time basis with automatic liquidation ensuring that IB does not have to spread the cost of credit losses to our customers like other brokers". I believe IB have said that they do not liquidate US stocks outside regular market hours. Besides, American-style options may be exercised at any time between the date of purchase and the expiration date. Not really literally any time. Last time I read about how the exercise/assignment process works, it was an overnight batch process at the OCC. After the exercise notice cutoff time, they decide which short positions are to be matched with which incoming exercise notices. The resulting transactions are sent to the firms holding the short positions, who then process them into the appropriate accounts, closing the short option positions and creating the appropriate stock position. Others have said that this happens before the open at IB. As a result of these two things, it seems that you have the time between whenever the stock position hits your account (pre-open), and whenever they start liquidating after the open, to decide how to proceed (e.g. by cleaning up stock positions pre-market, or placing opening orders).