Margin requirement

A performance bond paid upon purchase of a futures contract that protects the exchange clearinghouse from loss.

Margin requirement (options)

The amount of cash an uncovered (naked) option writer is required to deposit and maintain to cover his daily position valuation and reasonably foreseeable intraday price changes.

Maintenance Margin

The money or securities an investor keeps in a margin account in order to be able to borrow from a brokerage for short sales or other purposes. The maintenance is kept as collateral until the brokerage calls the margin and the client pays back what is owed. FINRA requires that the maintenance kept must be at least 25% of the amount borrowed, while some brokerages require maintenances of up to 50%. See also: Restricted account.

Margin Requirement Options

The initial margin or maintenance margin that an investor must deposit with a brokerage as collateral in order to purchase options with borrowed money. The margin requirement for options is set by Regulation T, but some brokerages have higher requirements.

margin requirement

See initial margin requirement, maintenance margin requirement, option margin.

Wall Street Words: An A to Z Guide to Investment Terms for Today's Investor by David L. Scott. Copyright © 2003 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. All rights reserved.

Margin requirement.

The margin requirement is the minimum amount the Federal Reserve, in Regulation T, requires you to deposit in a margin account before you can trade through that account.

Currently this minimum, or initial margin, is $2,000, or 50% of the purchase price of securities you buy on margin, or 50% of the amount that you receive for selling securities short.

In addition, there's a minimum maintenance requirement, a minimum of 25% and often more, of the market value of the securities in the account. The maintenance requirement is set by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), NASD, and the individual brokerage firms.