What is Futures Margin? - What Is It? How Does It Work?

What is Futures Margin? - What Is It? How Does It Work?These classes are all based on the book Trading and Pricing Financial Derivatives, available on Amazon at this link. https://amzn.to/2WIoAL0 Check out our website http://www.onfinance.org/Follow Patrick on twitter here: https://twitter.com/PatrickEBoyleMargin is a critical concept for those trading futures and derivatives in all asset classes. Futures margin is a good-faith deposit or an amount of capital one needs to post or deposit to control a futures contract. The margin is a down payment on the full contract value of a futures contract. Futures exchanges determine and set futures margin rates. At times, brokerage companies will add an extra premium to the minimum exchange margin rate to lower risk exposure. The margin is set based on the risk of market volatility. When market volatility moves higher in a futures market margin rates rise. When trading stocks, there is a simpler margin arrangement than in the futures market. The equity market allows participants to trade on up to 50% margin. Therefore, one can buy or sell up to $100,000 worth of stock for $50,000.Margin Rate for Future Contracts In the world of futures contracts, the margin rate is much lower. In a typical futures contract, the margin rate varies between 5 and 15% of the total contract value. Initial Futures Margin is the amount of money that is required to open a buy or sell position on a futures contract.Initial margin is original margin, the amount posted when the original trade takes place.Margin Maintenance or Variation MarginMargin Maintenance is the amount of money necessary when a loss on a futures position requires one to allocate more funds to return the margin to the initial or original margin level. Closing or liquidating a position eliminates the margin call requirement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices