Some of us have received warning letters regarding a new IBKR margining policy for the highest exposure in one's PM account. I have just seen the margin shoot up about 8% this morning - this is a friendly reminder to the community not to be caught off guard.
On what kind of instruments? Stocks, futures, options, ...? I don't notice anything peculiar on my futures portfolio.
When I used to own FUBO IB would always raise margins near potentially high volatility events like earnings, etc. And the short margin would shoot up even more.
I see almost 70% of 100 stocks i hold in charles schwab account say "HARD TO BORROW" since 3 weeks now ...Does that mean uptrend soon or short squeeze for some stocks very soon ?
The margin increase is really just from what they define as your third riskiest position if you're in concentration margin mode but it can be very substantial, and it only really matters if it puts your concentration margin near or above initial margin limits as you can trade anything but your three riskiest positions without impacting the concentration margin until you flip back into standard margin mode. Amusingly not amusingly, I'm now being assessed >200k margin against a position IB marks at 1.00, though in fairness max theoretical loss is ~220k. And ironically I put on the position primarily because it reduced my initial margin requirements substantially at the time, although I did also believe it was good risk/reward. There was also a separate margin increase on a number of single stocks a few days ago. I'm guessing they broadened out their definition of meme stocks.