Knowledge Center

Margin

Opening Transactions

To place an opening transaction in your margin account, you must have a minimum percentage of equity in your account to trade, presently set at 10% but subject to change at any time. When an opening transaction is placed in a margin account where the margin equity percent is too low, the trade will be rejected. You will see the following error message:

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This message alerts you to the reason your trade was rejected and indicates the current margin equity percent of your account.

Your balances page will also reflect your current buying power.

When your account has sufficient margin equity to complete your desired transaction, you will no longer receive the "Insufficient Margin Equity" error message on your trade.

Margin trading involves interest charges and risks, including the potential to lose more than deposited or the need to deposit additional collateral in a falling market. Scottrade's margin agreement, available at scottrade.com or through a Scottrade branch office, contains the Margin Disclosure Statement and information on our lending policies, interest charges and the risks associated with margin accounts.

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The information and content provided in the Scottrade® Knowledge Center is for informational and/or educational purposes only. The information presented or discussed is not, and should not be considered, a recommendation or an offer of, or solicitation of an offer by, Scottrade or its affiliates to buy, sell or hold any security or other financial product or an endorsement or affirmation of any specific investment strategy. You are fully responsible for your investment decisions. Your choice to engage in a particular investment or investment strategy should be based solely on your own research and evaluation of the risks involved, your financial circumstances and your investment objectives. Scottrade, Inc. and its affiliates are not offering or providing, and will not offer or provide, any advice, opinion or recommendation of the suitability, value or profitability of any particular investment or investment strategy.