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Just an FYI I logged into the account managment portion of IB on the website and found that you can run a report that will break down the margin requirment by position. It is located under Report Management-->Margin reports.
I was able to do that, this helps in future decision making if I've got large positions or am fully invested. I had forgotten about their special added tax basically to volatile positions. During Nov/2008 while I was waiting for my ACATS from Scottrade to transfer over I was getting close to a margin call as my naked puts I owned at the time were having that volatility penalty assessed twice a day and it just kept going up. That was a nice trial by fire/shit my pants moment.
I've been doing some thinking about the AAPL iron condor. If it's only for an earnings play on vol and you don't have intention of keeping it more than a few days, I don't understand buying the wings for protection. I would rather just sell the strangle with no protection but go further out with the strike prices. You would have to have an extreme move to make the wings necessary over a 1 or 2-day period.
I was able to do that, this helps in future decision making if I've got large positions or am fully invested. I had forgotten about their special added tax basically to volatile positions. During Nov/2008 while I was waiting for my ACATS from Scottrade to transfer over I was getting close to a margin call as my naked puts I owned at the time were having that volatility penalty assessed twice a day and it just kept going up. That was a nice trial by fire/shit my pants moment.
ReplyDeleteI've been doing some thinking about the AAPL iron condor. If it's only for an earnings play on vol and you don't have intention of keeping it more than a few days, I don't understand buying the wings for protection. I would rather just sell the strangle with no protection but go further out with the strike prices. You would have to have an extreme move to make the wings necessary over a 1 or 2-day period.