hey gang, i'm interested in opening an account with IB, for some relatively small intraday S & P E mini trades I want to do. any of you guys got a ballpark on how much cash i need to have in my account to buy ( or short ) a low number of contracts at a time? thanks!
Their intraday margin for futures is 50% of exchange minimums. http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/trading/marginRequirements/futuresMargin.php?ib_entity=llc Account minimum to open: $5000 http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/accounts/fees/minimumDeposits.php?ib_entity=llc#balance Exchange Minimums: http://www.cme.com/html.wrap/wrappedpages/clearing/pbrates/PBISHomePage.htm
thanks D2. so , just to be sure. If i deposited $5K, would i have enough margin to short 2 S & P emini contracts valued @ $75K each ( $50 multiplier * SP Cash index @ 1500 )?
Yes. But your calculation is not quite correct. Take the exchange minimum (outright spec): $3500 Divide by 2 (50% IB intraday margin): $1750 Multiply by 2 contracts = $3500 Long or short, the margin is the same and it's based on SPAN (CME) margin requirements. That said, you have enough @$5k deposited. Just be sure to use stops so you can stay in the game a little while and learn as much as you can.
IB offers the best retail margins as far as i know. They pretty require what the law says they have to.
There are those which offer $500 intraday margins on the ES. "Mo' bang fo' yo buck, son." Open E Cry for instance... http://www.openecry.com/Special/500DayTrade.cfm
As of this writing, IB's intraday futures margins are the roughly the same as its overnight margins. That pretty much wipes an advantage for daytraders in futures, unless they eventually lower them, imho. This is an across the board increase, but the original announcement stated explicitly that it was to be for "equities based futures and options ONLY". This turned out to be incorrect, and all intraday margins were effectively converted to overnight hold rates.
Just to clarify, that amount is $2800 per contract to daytrade the ES. Initial overnight margin for ES is around $4K. OldTrader
although volatility has dropped back to somewhat normal levels lately, IB is still raising margins! The margin for DAX used to be around 7000 EUR in the beginning of this year... it was 8600 last week and now it is up to 9416 ... I think they are overreacting really. Also the FTSE (Z) has gone from 1313 requirement to 3750 !! That's almost three times as much... but apart from a handful of wide range days we haven't seen anything out of the ordinary. http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/trading/marginRequirements/margin_amer.php?ib_entity=uk
Remember IB automatically liquidates your position once it falls below the margin limit. IB does not issue the margin calls. So you have to have more cash in your account than the actual margin minimum posted on IB's website to give yourself some room in case position moves against you.