Margin is calculated at three periods during the day: the market's open, the market's close, and overnight. The Margin Requirements section shows your Current, Look Ahead and Overnight margin (valid for futures only) calculations.
The Current margin is your real-time requirement right now. If you happen to be viewing this screen at 1:00 AM, your current and overnight margin values for your futures positions will be identical. If you're viewing this screen during trading hours, your current margin requirements for futures will be less than or equal to the overnight requirement.
The Look Ahead projects what your margin requirements will be at the next margin calculation, based on what you have in your portfolio now. If you're viewing this screen at 2:00 PM, the next calculation will be at the close. If you're viewing this screen at 1:00 AM, the next calculation will be at the open.
Overnight is the requirement after regular market hours and only applies to futures.
To view all Margin Requirements values, expand the section using the green plus (+) sign. To customize this view to show only the values you want to see, put a check next to these parameters and click the green minus (-) sign to contract the section.
Try PM
Click to see how your margin requirements would be different if you had a portfolio margin account instead of a RegT margin account.
Margin Warnings
To help you stay on top of your margin requirements, we provide pop-up messages and color-coded information to notify you that you are approaching a serious margin deficiency. TWS will highlight the row whose value is in the distress state:
Yellow - You have only a 5% cushion above the margin requirement
Orange - Your margin cushion is depleted and you have a short time to enter into margin-reducing trades before your positions are liquidated. During this time you should be able to enter a trade that will decrease your margin requirement, but not increase.
Red - Your positions will shortly start to be liquidated as necessary to bring your account back within the margin limits.
For more information
See the Margin pages on the IB website for details on margin calculations.