I lined up the same order on IBKR and it showed the same credit. But it listed a margin hit of 152K.
Guess I need to change my margin? But risk based.... they might not take kindly to my all in TSLA portfolio in this account.
There are different Margin accounts. There is RegT-Margin (aka "rule based margin", which most consumers in the US get assigned to) and Portfolio-Margin (individual margin depending on your portfolio).
I was first on RegT-Margin and it behaves very similar to cash-only. Then i was on Portfolio-Margin in the UK (before Brexit), because IBKR was located there for european consumers. Then i got moved to Portfolio-Margin in Ireland - and instantly got threatened with a 2 million dollar margin-call if i don't "fix it" before the change. They even phoned me about it
.. I mean .. i was London-compliant, but not Ireland-compliant
Something changed in the calculation of Spreads or risk-levels were different (2-sigma black-swan vs. 3-sigma black-swan) or whatever .. i suppose due to legal stuff in the EU/Ireland that were not applicable in London.
And i always skate barely around being margin-called (even if.. i can buy *sugar*-puts like 400p against black-swan-events for 100 bucks every week and "free up" half of my used margin) and i think they were onto me.. because the requirements got harder and harder..
TSLA stock has margin-usage of 60% or so for me (meaning 100k in TSLA only leaves me ~40k margin to "double use" in Bull-Put-Spreads or so)..
Normally i hover ~90% margin-use (if stock alone takes up 60% of your net-worth going to 90% is easy -.-)..
Under RegT-Margin Stock would take up 0 margin iirc. .. but you won't get 100% of your net-worth marginable.
AND i often end up with things in my theoretical calculations like:
- Take 100k max-loss-risk: not margin compliant
- Increase max-loss to 150k: fine with margin
- Decrease max-loss to 25k: fine with margin
Especially if i plan things like "using the handbrake": In example the whole portfolio has a TSLA-delta of 500. I want to go 300 short to take profit on the downturn (and because it is stock i can trade premarket/after-hours). Impossible due to margin. 500 would be ok, though (but too much risk if i'm "wrong" for such a trade), 60 would be ok, too.
Same with "complicated" options.
I still don't get, why they won't just take the P/L-Diagram before/after, put an integral over [-3 sigma, +3 sigma] and take the result as margin requirement.. instead of identifying combinations, pairing them up internally & have the formula break in spectecular ways ...
FYI, I’m trying out the LEAPS rolling method outlined by
@Papafox and it’s working out pretty well. A while back I bought some Sept c500s when I let some CCs get assigned. After the recent run up, rolled those up to c600s, 2 for 3, and they are now about 0.93 delta. For a net zero roll out one month requires a SP difference of about $10, while rolling out two months requires about $20, both of which are easily in the daily range of SP fluctuations. So, bought one Nov +c600 during Monday’s dip with available cash, then immediately set a sell order for the same price (well, a 1$ more since I’m greedy) for the Sept +c600. Works perfectly, executed the next day. I’ve also rolled out one month on a roughly $10 SP move. I will keep doing this daily on one LEAP at a time, in order to take advantage of the daily SP fluctuations. Something very interesting I observed today: my sell order did NOT hit, but “somebody” else’s DID at the exact same price. In addition, the SP had peaked $3-$4 higher while my order was active, and was still showing similar bid-ask spread. Since this was 0.93 delta, the premium should have jumped at least $2-$3, yet mine didn’t sell. Only six options had traded today, so this is clear manipulation in my opinion. A few minutes later the SP dumped $5 in a few seconds, so the MMs knew what was coming and refused to buy my sell. So anyway, the game’s rigged so be careful.
Maybe the other order was on another exchange that your order.
If you use IBKR you usually take "SMART" as the exchange - meaning IBKR lists it on the cheapest exchange, but pulls your order & reroutes it if (after commission) it would sell on any other exchange.. and TSLA is traded on like 20 of exchanges..
If i trade with my german banking-app I have to select the exchange everytime beforehand & they do not reroute.. like "direct-trade" (i.e. dark-pool) inside the banking institution without fees, frankfurt for ~10 bucks + %age, stuttgart for ~10 bucks + %age, munich for even more...
Maybe look after the exchange the trades happened on and if you can trade on them or your broker reroutes to them.
TSLA Dark Pool data found in:
my question was more what a "print" is .. i understand the answer from saniflash as "print means report in the public ledger at the exchanges".
my initial understanding was "whoa .. they appeared from naked-shorting inside dark pools and got reported publicly after the fact"
But thanks for the links.