NG, natural gas futures, margins used to be superlow on IB. Now they are asking $9602! wtf?! for 1 lot. Though on their website it's much lower: https://misc.interactivebrokers.com...ite=IB&sess=1596647418&mid=001&conid=98308004
All the people with their net worth in an IB account are very grateful. Feel free to move to a broker offering $500 margins.
IB is known for raising margins when risk/volatility perceived as "heightened". That's good for the safety of customer money as well as IB's.
I think many brokers got freaked-out/wreaked by what happened with CL going negative last quarter. And now that NG can go negative too, combined with the unknown of the Lebanon blast, maybe they think there will be some NG issue coming? Hell, even AMP went nuts and now have a liquidate-only policy on CME meats. You couldn't enter a position on it if you wanted to. Odd, since CME meats have the most restrictive limit breakers out there.
No complaints here, too. That is one crazy contract that I would over-capitalize. But, I do empathize a bit. Doesn't IBKR give more leeway for multiple positions on the same futures? Or correlated futures within one complex?
I understand that IB wants to be prudent but their model of determining "risk" leaves much to be desired. They do this all the time to VIX volatility products too and don't even take into account any hedging measures that a trader puts on. It's ridiculous, unreasonable and absolutely frustrating for a trader who is well covered for the trades and now has to be forced to liquidate positions that are even profitable. And they don't care.
IB has bad risk management, they lost 100 million or whatever it was in CL. Next blow up will not be in NG, will be some instrument and it will take IB by surprise as usual. They have grown too big and complacent, they dont know how to mange risk anymore.