Commodity Futures Margins are almost always set at the minimum levels mandated by the various exchanges. Whenever you place an order, our system instantaneously calculates the new margin requirement and verifies that your up-to-the-second account equity is sufficient. There’s no human intervention or screening of any kind -- everything’s fully automated. In addition, each time a working order is executed in your account, the system recalculates your margin requirement and all your other account balances on the fly, in real-time.

Day Trader Margins

Every trader has the ability to select whether you’d like standard exchange-minimum margins or whether you’d like special, reduced day trading margins in select markets. Unless you specify otherwise, we set your account at the normal exchange-minimum margins as the default. However, we’ve designated more than 40 very liquid and actively traded futures markets to be “day trade eligible,” and if desired, you can configure your account to trade these markets with just 50% of the regular margin requirement. Reduced day trading margins are very useful to short-term day traders who seek to generate quick returns by quickly moving in and out of futures markets.