GordonDK

Hi guys and girls, I'm about to start my live day trading career next week, and I'm a bit in doubt about the day trading margin requirements for stocks, so here goes my question(s): I have opened up an account with IB where I have deposited 35k USD in cash (just to make it more specific). IB have assigned me a buying power (bp) worth 4 times my initial cash equity = 140k USD. Does this mean that I can buy shares worth up to 140k USD without getting a margin call from IB? I'm using DAS Trader Pro, so will DAS automatically prohibit me buying shares worth more than my bp of 140 k USD, or do I have to keep a watch on this myself? I'm a bit in doubt about the margin requirements for day trading in general because I found this article: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/071114/guide-day-trading-margin.asp. In the above article, it would seem that the margin or buying power (bp) is only calculated based on the excess maintenance margin. The maintenance margin would be 25 k USD, so the excess margin would be 10 k USD, which means bp = 4 * 10 k USD = 40 k USD - at least according to the above article. However, this is clearly not the bp that has been allocated to me by IB... Are there any other margin requirements for day trading stocks, e.g. like you need to have 50% of the bought stock value in cash equity (and then you borrow the other 50% on margin), or does this only apply to swing trading where you hold the stock overnight? I took a look at the following IB info, and got a little unsure about the margin requirements: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=24862. Would appreciate it, if some of the experienced day traders in our community could shed some light on this issue. Thank you very much in advance! Br., Jimmy

Hi deejaypj, Do you mean that you bought stocks worth more than your allocated buying power (bp)? Take a look at this: http://www.finra.org/investors/day-trading-margin-requirements-know-rules I have some more specific questions about margin trading, which I'm going to put in another post. So look out for this. Br., Jimmy

Er du fra Danmark siden du kalder dig VikingTrader og slutter med skål?

I normally mute Andrew once we go live. He's way too distracting when I'm trying to make my own trades :)

Hi, I'm Jimmy. I'm a civil engineer living in Copenhagen, Denmark. Been travelling and working around the world non-stop for the past 16 years (Ireland, Vietnam, Qatar, China, USA and the UAE - in that order), but now I'm back in Denmark. The taxes here are slowly killing me, and I read Andrew's book while in Bali last year - need some more money:). Did not believe it was possible to do this. Read his book a couple of times + a few others, and then decided to sign up with the SIM and Andrew's program. Been doing it for the past 4.5 months now, and expect to go live in another 1.5 months. Been building up some nice consistent profits (nothing big, but consistent) for the past couple of weeks. Hope to keep this up. Trading really is 80% psychology, but if you DREAM BIG, BELIEVE and PERSIST, then it seems that you might quite possibly come to emulate Andrew's (and other successful trader's) performance in the end. So just keep it up, study hard and learn the action of the market, and you will succeed! Jimmy