Margin Requirements and Policies

GCI's margin requirements are the most advantageous in the industry:

ICTS Forex Account: $25 per lot on all Forex instruments.  Equivalent to approximately 0.25% margin or 400:1 leverage.

CFD/Share Account:  5% on individual shares, $25 per lot on Forex instruments.  Click here for exact margin requirements on each product.

MetaTrader Account:  $250 per lot on Forex, $25 per 0.1 lots.  Equivalent to approximately 0.25% margin or 400:1 leverage.  5% on individual shares.  About 1% for indices and commodities. Click here for exact margin requirements on each product.

GCI is able to maintain these low margin requirements by enabling automatic liquidation of positions once a margin call is reached.  This policy also provides for the protection of client account balances in the event of rapid price movements. 

A margin call is reached if a client's account equity falls below the required margin.  For example, in an ICTS Forex account, if a client has 10 lots of open positions a margin call will occur if account equity drops below $500.  At this point, some or all of the client's open positions will be closed immediately at current prices.
 
Traders are also able to monitor both usable margin and used margin in real-time from the "Account Information" window of the online trading platform.  Positions will be automatically closed once usable margin drops below zero. 
 
Walk through an example...
 
GCI encourages clients to avoid margin calls by either using stop loss orders or maintaining adequate funds in the account relative to position size.
 

More on CFD Margins

Share CFDs are traded in lots that are equivalent in size to 100 shares each.  For example, a trader can purchase 1 lot of a CFD on IBM at $90, for a total position value of $9,000.  The required margin for this trade is $450. Indices, Forex and Commodities are traded in "lots". Please see specifications for further information on contract sizes.