Hey all, I downloaded the TWS Demo from IB and I went in and quickly tested buying 1700 shares of SPY. Here is my account window: I'm new to trading so correct me if I'm wrong here. I was under the impression that PM allowed a maximum of 6x margin, but the numbers I'm seeing here show a gross position value of $362k with a maintenance margin of only $33k. This is greater than 10x. When I try this with stocks like AAPL, GOOGL, AMZN, etc, I'm seeing more normal leverage, but with indexes like SPY the maintenance margin is significantly lower. Is this a glitch or do indexes truly get more than 6x margin? Thanks
glossolalia, The OCC offers 15% margin on equities (6.6X) and more for broad based indexes. For SPY they shock down 8% and up 6%. that is a max of 12.5X and 16.66X respectively. Of course each clearing broker can offer less but not more. Bob