Glossary

Portfolio Margining

See Also:

Margin: Margin is an amount of money deposited by both buyers and sellers of futures contracts and by sellers of options contracts to ensure performance of the terms of the contract (the making or taking delivery of the commodity or the cancellation of the position by a subsequent offsetting trade). Margin in commodities is not a down payment or partial payment on a purchase, as in securities, but rather a performance bond. There are two main types of Margin: initial margin and maintenance margin. Initial margin is the amount of margin required by the broker when a futures position is opened. Maintenance margin is an amount that must be maintained on deposit at all times. In situation when the equity in a customer's account drops to or below the level of maintenance margin because of adverse price movement, the broker must issue a margin call to restore the customer's equity to the initial level. Exchanges specify levels of initial margin and maintenance margin for each futures contract, but futures commission merchants may require their customers to post margin at higher levels than those specified by the exchange. Futures margin is determined by the SPAN margining system, which takes into account all positions in a customer's portfolio.

Call: There are three meaning of the "Call" term. It could be:
1) An option contract giving the buyer the right but not the obligation to purchase a commodity or other asset or to enter into a long futures position;
2) a period at the opening and the close of some futures markets in which the price for each futures contract is established by auction;
3) the requirement that a financial instrument be returned to the issuer prior to maturity, with principal and accrued interest paid off upon return.

CIF: CIF is the cost, insurance, and freight paid to a point of destination and included in the price quoted.

Offset: Offset (also referred to as Liquidation, closing out and cover) is the liquidation of a purchase of futures contracts through the sale of an equal number of contracts of the same delivery month, or liquidating a short sale of futures through the purchase of an equal number of contracts of the same delivery month.

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