Just got an e-mail from Doug over at Global Futurers. He says: My firm only requires the overnight margin if you keep a position during the 15 minute close from 3:15 to 3:30 pm Central for the emini SP. If you want to get into a trade at 8 pm or 5:30 am you would only need $500 per contract. (You can select the $300 margin plan also, but comission would be higher.)
50 cent, Now that I have confirmation that Global Futures will give me day trading margin on futures orders placed before the market opens, I'm considering setting up an account with them. If there is way for me to still place my trades through IB let me know. You previously said you have $300 margin with Global but trade via IB. I took that to mean you are using both brokers in combination and somehow getting Global's low day trading margin while trading through IB. If that is correct then let me know how you are doing this. I've never heard of such a thing so maybe I misunderstood what you said.
50 - if you place this order after 4:30pm EST that is not 'overnight'. You would have to get into a position before 4:15pm EST (and filled) and hold the position past 4:15pm EST to test your idea. Obviously that may not be such a good idea, but overnight is typically viewed in that you have an open position at 4:15pm EST. Even if you sell at 4:30pm EST when it reopens, you held 'overnight' and therefore incurred overnight margins. My guess would be if you have $300 intraday margins and max your account out, at 4:16pm your phone, email and fax would be going off from global.
Brownsfan019, All you have to do is go to the Global Futures website and it will tell you that their over-night margin on the ES is $3,900. But as you note, for that to apply one must get into a position before 4:15pm EST (and filled) and hold the position past 4:15pm EST. That's the way Global Futures does it. The problem is that many brokers don't apply over-night margin this way. IB is hitting me with over-night margin when I enter an ES order 3 minutes before the open. I started this thread because it seems to me many brokers are misapplying the over-night margin rules.
tele - I see. So basically the brokers interpretation of overnight is what the problem is here. I don't deal with IB and have not had this problem before. I have traded futures for awhile and thought the overnight definition was pretty clear, but guess not! That's where 50 and I were disagreeing - the definition of overnight is what is the issue here. Once you are in an overnight trade, overnight margins apply and those are indeed set by the exchanges, which is what my initial post said and 50 said I was incorrect. So, in summary: INTRA-DAY MARGINS are set by the broker and can fluctuate broker to broker. OVERNIGHT MARGINS are set by the exchanges and to my knowledge, no broker is going to 'front' the money for you to remain in a postion overnight. OVERNIGHT is usually defined as being in a position before 4:15pm EST AND holding that at the close at 4:15pm EST. You are now in an 'overnight' position even if you liquidate at 4:30pm EST. Therefore, overnight can be defined as little as 15 minutes.
I just called IB. Their rule is that over-night margin applys to any trading that occurs outside the time frame of 9:30am EST - 4:00pm EST
It is you that is not understanding this - there is no concept of "overnight margin rules" to the exchange. There are just one set of margin rules that accounts must have. Brokers have started calling it "overnight margin" because they only apply the rules on positions you hold through the close - or "overnight" - meaning you hold from one trading day to the next. Remember, the trading day changes after the close - not at midnight. Like I said in my previous post - the brokers don't have to report positions that are only held intraday - they only have to report positions that are held at the close - and they must apply the exchange margin requirements to those positions at that time - and at that time only. Thus "overnight" margin. Outside of that, brokers can call and define the margins they require anyway they want - just like IB does. IB does not apply the margins "wrong" - because there are no set rules other that what I mentioned above. IB is far more conservative than, for example, Global.
brown, i wasn't going to get into a position, just to enter an order (far away from the market). if it exceeds my margin it gets rejected. tele, you misunderstood - i have an account with global but trade through IB. there is no connection between them. i get IB's margins in my IB account. before switching to global, consider their highly inferior free trading platform - jTrader. the biggest piece of junk in the industry. their better platforms (e.g. xTrader), cost a heafty monthly fee. also consider much higher commissions at global. IB has a slew of other advantages over global, as well. margin isn't everything.....