What is the initial margin requirement?

Initial margin is the percent of a purchase price that must be paid with cash when using a margin account. Fed regulations currently require that the initial margin is set at a minimum of 50% of a security’s purchase price. But brokerages and exchanges can set initial margin requirements higher than the Fed minimum.

What is initial and variation margin?

Initial Margin is the minimum balance you need to have in your account to open a position. Variation Margin is the unrealised profit (or loss) on open positions or transactions.

How is initial margin calculated?

Multiply the purchase price by the initial margin requirement percentage. Suppose you want to buy 500 shares of a stock at $40 per share. The purchase price comes to $20,000. If your margin requirement is 65 percent, multiply $20,000 by 65 percent to determine your initial margin requirement of $13,000.

What does a 50% initial margin mean?

This original loan amount as a percentage of the investment amount is called the initial margin. So if a broker has an initial margin requirement of 50%, that means you must pay 50% of the total investment before the lender will let you borrow the other half.

Does initial margin change daily?

We typically change margins after a market closes because we have a full view of the market liquidity of that trading day. We provide at least 24 hours’ notice of margin changes to give market participants time to assess the impact on their position and make arrangements for funding.

What happens if a margin call is not met?

If you do not meet the margin call, your brokerage firm can close out any open positions in order to bring the account back up to the minimum value. This is known as a forced sale or liquidation. Your brokerage firm can do this without your approval and can choose which position(s) to liquidate.

Why Initial margin is collected?

A margin account allows an investor to purchase stocks with a percentage of the price covered by a loan from the brokerage firm. The initial margin represents the percentage of the purchase price that must be covered by the investor’s own money and is usually at least 50% of the needed funds for U.S. stocks.

How do you calculate initial and maintenance margin?

The general formula is: ​Margin Call Price = Initial Purchase Price * (1 – Initial Margin percentage) / (1 – Maintenance Margin percentage)​. In the provided maintenance margin example, the initial margin is ​50 percent​ (the federal minimum) and the maintenance margin is ​25 percent​ (the FINRA regulatory minimum).

What is a 100 margin requirement?

Before trading on margin, FINRA, for example, requires you to deposit with your brokerage firm a minimum of $2,000 or 100 percent of the purchase price of the margin securities, whichever is less. This is known as the “minimum margin.” Some firms may require you to deposit more than $2,000.