Does IB charge higher margin requirements than other brokers? The reason I asked is because I tried to transfer my account at Etrade to IB but IB rejected it. I have a ton of naked short options in my account and while it's okay at Etrade, IB wouldn't accept the transfer because they said I needed to contribute an extra $22,000 to satisfy their margin requirements.
Depends on your point of view. If you don't want your broker hosting people who overmargin and blow up, then it's a good thing.
Etrade hasn't blown up because of people who overmargin, so I don't see what IBKR would. Guess I'll have to go with Options House since they have more reasonable margin requirements.
Yes, it is IB. They are big and cheap, and higher margins probably means fewer problems for them. They have to keep their prices low somehow.
Well I want to be able to convert my USD to foreign currency (EURO and JPY), and trade options on stock indexes like the Nikkei. Any other suggestions besides IB? Or is that basically it?
stock price of eftc http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=ETFC#symbol=ETFC;range=1d you are right they haven't blown up yet. it could have been your best short.
If those shorts went against you and you owned 100k in additional losses 1) do you have it, handy 2) would you pay it , or move to Bolivia 3) IB doesn't know these answers in advance. 4) Etard are morons and don't care 5) Margin is not a 'charge', it's a deposit against losses.
children fresh out of high school (or ones still in h.s. as evidenced by the recent fit thrown byanother 18 y.o. option cowboy) shouldn't play with the adults. That's why we have E(asy)Trade.