You stated that one needs to put up 100% of the premium to purchase an ES call, and that is just plain wrong. You don't seem to understand how SPAN margining works. You should read up on it.
So in a retail account you do not need to put up 100% of the premeium of the purchase of an ES option?
SPAN starts to play when you are going short or creating spreads. If you are buying an option, you pay premium. That is it. Let's not confuse price that you pay to buy an option and risk margins or rather performance bond requirements that SPAN calculates.
You're digging a deeper hole for yourself. Don't let me stop you. pop. [sound of randek suffering a rupture of a massive fusiform aneurysm]
Here's some math for you, Riskarb. ES is at 1315. Consider a hypothetical DITM call with a strike price of 1 (it doesn't exist, but it's just used for simplicity). That call value would be at least 1314, which is almost same as the future itself. What do you think the margin for that call is? According to your erroneous answer, that deep-in-the-money call would be 1314 * $50, or $65,700. Sorry, but your answer was just ridiculous. You seem quite embarrassed to be corrected. I think that popping sound is coming from your body. Ouch.
You don't need to use a strike of 1. That's just for simplicity because I was not sure if other integers might confuse RiskArb anymore. But you can try the calls with the 1000 strike. Ask Riskarb if IB tells him the margin requirement for that strike is [315 * $50], or $15,750. LOL