{"id":179865,"date":"2021-06-07T13:23:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T17:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ibkrcampus.com\/glossary-terms\/margin-call\/"},"modified":"2025-04-07T14:27:31","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T18:27:31","slug":"margin-call","status":"publish","type":"glossary-terms","link":"https:\/\/www.interactivebrokers.com\/campus\/glossary-terms\/margin-call\/","title":{"rendered":"Margin Call"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <strong>margin call<\/strong> is a situation where a broker demands that an investor deposits more money or securities into their margin account to meet the required minimum margin level. This typically happens when the value of the securities in the margin account falls below a certain threshold, causing the account&#8217;s equity to drop below the required margin.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s how it works in simpler terms:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Margin Account<\/strong>: When you buy securities (stocks, bonds, etc.) on margin, you&#8217;re borrowing money from a broker to make the purchase. The margin is the portion of the purchase that you pay for with your own funds, and the rest is borrowed.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Maintenance Margin<\/strong>: Brokers require you to maintain a certain level of equity (your own money) in the margin account. This is known as the <strong>maintenance margin<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Margin Call<\/strong>: If the value of your investments falls, and your account equity drops below the required maintenance margin, the broker will issue a margin call. This means you have to add more funds or securities to your account to bring it back up to the required level.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you don\u2019t meet the margin call, the broker may sell some of your assets to cover the shortfall, often at a loss to you. It\u2019s a way for the broker to protect themselves from the risk of lending money to an investor who can\u2019t pay it back.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Note:\u00a0 Interactive Brokers<\/strong> does not make margin calls. Instead, real-time liquidations occur when an account has a margin deficiency. Due to fast-moving markets, accounts generally will not have time to deposit funds to meet a margin deficiency. While IBKR attempts to send margin deficit notifications on a best-efforts basis, this may not always be possible.<\/p>\n<p>To monitor margin compliance, users should track their Excess Liquidity and Special Memorandum Account (SMA) values, which can be viewed in TWS under Account &gt; Account Window in the Available for Trading section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A scenario in which a broker requires the investor to deposit additional funds or assets to meet the minimum Margin Requirements for the account. Note: Interactive\u00a0Brokers does not issue margin calls. When the margin threshold is reached, assets will be liquidated. Real-time Margin Warning information is provided for accounts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"traders-glossary":[13255,13251],"class_list":{"0":"post-179865","1":"glossary-terms","2":"type-glossary-terms","3":"status-publish","5":"traders-glossary-trading-terms-m","6":"traders-glossary-trading-alphabet"},"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.9 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Archives Term | IBKR Glossary | IBKR Campus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A scenario in which a broker requires the investor to deposit additional funds or assets to meet the minimum Margin Requirements for the account.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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