Initial margin is the amount of funds required by CME Clearing to initiate a futures position. While CME Clearing sets the margin amount, your broker may be required to collect additional funds for deposit.

Maintenance margin is the minimum amount that must be maintained at any given time in your account.

Intraday Margin rates are effective from the product open until 15 minutes prior to the session close when Initial Margin is required. Initial Margins are set by the exchange and represent the amount required to hold a position into the next trading session

Initial Margin is set by the exchange. This is the amount required to carry a contract past the daily close.

DayTrade Margin is set by Trade Pro. This is the amount required to enter into a position per contract on an intraday basis.

The various types of margin apply when you have an open position.

During the regular trading day (as defined by your broker) the "day trading" (aka intraday) margin will apply. If you have an open position and your balance doesn't drop below the total day trading margin required before closing the positions you'll be fine.

However, outside of the "day trading" hours, the margin set by the exchange will apply. This us often much higher than the day trading hours. If you carry a position outside of the day trading hours, you'll have to meet the higher requirements.

Most day traders or scalpers will only have open positions during the day, so they'll never have to meet the higher requirements.

The brokers can set the intraday margins. Some brokers encourage day trading and will have much lower day trading margins. Others will give you a smaller break (say 50% off maintenance margin).

Separately, a broker may have a minimum account balance that would apply even if you don't have any positions open. Often the brokers that encourage day trading with very low day trading margins won't have a minimum account balance.

... why does CME says that the initial margin is the minimum required to "initiate" a position? Should it be just clarified to say "initiate a position outside of trading hours"?

From the CME website we can see that:



However, certain brokers explain this in a different way, NinjaTrader says here the following:



TradeProFutures also says here:



And AMP, while they do agree with CME with the Maintenance Margin definition, they have no mention of the Initial Margin here

However, on NinjaTrader we can see that the initial margin for MNQ is US$1760, here.

So I wonder, how come NinjaTrader and other brokers like Optimus can open accounts with minimum funding as low as $400 or $500? Tradovate says they don't even have minimum funding!

Does this mean that after the first day I will get a margin call to get the account up to the initial margin of $1760? Even if I don't have any open position after 15:45?

Or would i get a margin call if my funding falls bellow the minimum $400/$500?

Thank you.

Thank you for the clarification, but why does CME says that the initial margin is the minimum required to "initiate" a position? Should it be just clarified to say "initiate a position outside of trading hours"?

The "regular trading hours" are not part of the equation, by the way -- they are simply the old pit hours, when there were manual trading pits, before electronic trading that went on at night.

Positions opened and closed before the exchange-defined close of trading for the day are not subject to CME margin rules at all. Brokers can set margins wherever they like. Many set margins at around $500 or even $400 for contracts like the ES. What matters is when the exchange sets the close and open of the trading day.

Trading in ES is halted, for example, at 1600 (4:00 PM) Chicago time (US Central Time). ES opens for a "new" day, after 1700 (5:00 PM) Chicago time, Sunday through Thursday (it is open from Thursday at 5:00 PM and all day Friday but does not reopen Friday evening.) The "regular trading hours" are not part of the equation, by the way -- they are simply the old pit hours, when there were manual trading pits, before electronic trading that went on at night. (In fact, the ES pit hours also began at the same time as the NYSE hours in New York, and ended 15 minutes after the NY close. So these hours are still relevant to trading because they have the highest volume. But they are not how the CME defines a trading day today.)

This is odd-sounding in terms of the calendar, because Monday's trade date begins Sunday night at 17:00 CT, for instance, and each "day's" trading actually starts at 17:00 CT on the afternoon of the previous day, paying no attention to the usual change of date at midnight. But this is how they do it.

Positions held after the exchange-defined close are subject to CME margin rules. So, if your broker requires, say $500 margin for day trades, then you will need to either be out of your position before the close, or you will need to have margin sufficient to meet the CME requirements. Brokers will generally require you to do one or the other at times that are before the deadline, which is also up to them. If you are going to hold "overnight," (which is kind of funny terminology today with around-the clock hours), that is, if you open before the close and are still open past the close, you are in CME territory. Otherwise, you are in unregulated broker-land. If you are in CME territory, then your initial margin requirement to have the position is the exchange-determined initial margin; subsequently, you will need CME maintenance margin. If you are only day trading and get out when the broker requires, you never need any CME-mandated margin, just what the broker sets.

You can look up the CME hours at its website, and you can find the brokers' rules at theirs.

(Please note: brokers do not have your best interests in mind, and using such low margin for day trades can be suicidal for the trader. But brokers get more small traders to sign up that way. The supply of new day traders willing to take such risks is apparently inexhaustible, so brokers don't mind that many of these accounts will be blown up from not having enough cushion to take losses. There are more where they came from, basically.)

But this is how the margin situation works out. Not actually confusing when you unwind it.

Bob.

Apologies. I didn't realize that "regular trading hours" was strictly defined with a universally accepted definition to mean "old pit hours." I've seen it used a bit more loosely so I didn't know.

I was trying to convey the idea of "day trading hours" as defined by a specific broker, which as far as I can tell, is not the same thing as "other than CME hours" because each broker seems to have a slightly different definition that doesn't align perfectly with the CME boundaries.

That was magnificent, Thank you!

If you don't mind, I agree that just $500 for ES is suicidal (that's just 10 points!) but would it be suicidal for something like MYM or MNQ?

Thank you again

From the CME website we can see that:







However, certain brokers explain this in a different way, NinjaTrader says here the following:







TradeProFutures also says here:







And AMP, while they do agree with CME with the Maintenance Margin definition, they have no mention of the Initial Margin here



However, on NinjaTrader we can see that the initial margin for MNQ is US$1760, here.



So I wonder, how come NinjaTrader and other brokers like Optimus can open accounts with minimum funding as low as $400 or $500? Tradovate says they don't even have minimum funding!



Does this mean that after the first day I will get a margin call to get the account up to the initial margin of $1760? Even if I don't have any open position after 15:45?



Or would i get a margin call if my funding falls bellow the minimum $400/$500?



Thank you.