Margin Requirement for Trading (ES) After Hours (not Holding a Position Overnight)

[wartyfrog 10]

Hi All,

 

I am new to Emini and am doing a bit of research on it. I came across this exceptional site and thought I should ask my question here.

 

Pretty sure this is asked before but I could not find the answer doing a search......

 

When I papertrade with ThinkorSwim, I was always "charged" a margin fee (the $4975) when trading after hours. Since I do not have time to trade during the day time, I wonder if trading at night requires a higher margin? I understand that if you hold a position overnight (i.e. pass 5 pm ish) you have to have 5K ish per contract, but what about entering and exiting a position afterhours? Is this still considered as "intraday"?

 

Any suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks!

[UrmaBlume 10]

Hi All,

 

I am new to Emini and am doing a bit of research on it. I came across this exceptional site and thought I should ask my question here.

 

Pretty sure this is asked before but I could not find the answer doing a search......

 

When I papertrade with ThinkorSwim, I was always "charged" a margin fee (the $4975) when trading after hours. Since I do not have time to trade during the day time, I wonder if trading at night requires a higher margin? I understand that if you hold a position overnight (i.e. pass 5 pm ish) you have to have 5K ish per contract, but what about entering and exiting a position afterhours? Is this still considered as "intraday"?

 

Any suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks!

 

Because of lower liquidity, margin requirement for trades outside the 405 minuted day session have always been higher than the day margin rates.

 

Margin requirements for both day and outside the day session will vary broker to broker.

 

UB

[wartyfrog 10]

UB, Thank you for the reply. I see the reasoning now. I have just place a test order on thinkorswim and notice now that it has an approx $200 difference between "day" and "night" margin requirement!