Silver is the craziest. It has an initial margin of $40K which is ~30% of the contract. The Gold margin is a lot lower at only ~ 7%. I wonder what IB sees as a risk for Silver but not Gold?
%% I'm not a mind reader. BUT most likely they remember all the Hunt silver panic buys up to $50\ + panic sell$ all the way back down to $12??????? I've got a silVer chart with margin uptrending below price trend/nothing like a good trend/trends..................................
%% Exactly; + look @ all the difference between the banks required down payment +required prop + hazzard insurance.[REALTY\ i dont keep up with auto loan requirements anymore................................................................................\
It's true the IB has higher margin requirements, and there are many low margin brokers like NinjaTrader. However the real truth is that the higher margin requirements really are to protect traders. Just because a low margin broker lets use trade ES for $500 per contract does not mean it is a good idea. Trading with such low balance is most closer to gambling than the business of trading.
Two common misconceptions: 1.Seeking high margin means traders are trading on high leverage. 2. Seeking fast news feed means traders are trading on news.
CME now lists the maintenance margin requirement at $1,600 while IB requires a maintenance margin of $6,780, more than four times the CME requirement!
low volume...so make sense they will ask higher margin but seems a bit too much....only 560 contracts traded today. You can see our margins at: https://www.e-futures.com/margin-requirements.php
Korean Won Futures maintenance margin CME: $2,500 https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/fx/emerging-market/korean-won.margins.html Cannon Trading: $2,500 https://www.e-futures.com/margin-requirements.php Interactive Brokers: $18,500 https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=26662 Now the Won has very low volume and sometimes doesn't even trade. But the bid-ask spread is usually pretty tight. Does Interactive Brokers really need to protect against a 17% move in the Won-Dollar exchange rate?