if you don't understand that futures margin have increased. so now your cash level is less. even though you paid 'cash' for the stock, your new cash is less from increased in other products like futures. as for options there is no margin. and other stocks. brokers can eliminate margin for some ETF margins can change too. instead of $800 cash for a futures contract. the exchange now wants $15,0000 USD or double it even for daytrading it. due to high volatility and no lock limit down in intraday trading. there is now no limit in how low or how high the price can go in intraday futures trading which rediculous. price doesn't go from $20 to $1 in day. especially for a commodity. it's not like stock that is bankrupt news even worthless bankrupt stocks don't go to zero or 'negative price' which really discredits the credibility of the exchange.
I don't underdstand the quandary. You have, say, $10,000. You buy $10,000 worth of stock. What is the margin issue? Petterfy is trying to scam everyone with cheep tactics? If I buy from you something worth 10K, with 10K, why would I owe you anything more? WTF, IB is nonsense.
here are all (i guess) US stocks: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/?f=/en/trading/ViewMarginStocks.php?cntry=usa&tag.. long is 100% max and short can be up to 500%
Yeah, it's just a generic message sent out to customers. It doesn't mean anything to OP. IB sends out messages to customers or a subset of customers automatically based on some criteria. The message may or may not apply to the trader. Or the message (like margin reqs.) may apply to any potential further trading. Since this message was about a change in margin reqs. in a stock that OP held, IB sent it to him. There's nothing nefarious or devious about it. It is up to the recipient to see how it applies to him.