Margin Call Price & Margin Loan Calculator

About the Margin Call Price & Margin Loan Calculator

Buying shares with a margin loan — or selling them short — puts your broker’s money beside yours, and the broker asks for more when your equity falls below the maintenance margin. This calculator works out the price that triggers that margin call, how far the price can move against you first, your buying power, the loan’s interest over the days you hold, and — at the price now — your equity, your margin ratio and the deposit a call would ask for.

It starts from the rules where they are set by regulators and exchanges: in the United States, Regulation T’s 50% initial margin and FINRA Rule 4210’s maintenance of 25% of a long position (30% of a short, with amounts a share for low-priced shorts); in Japan, the exchange’s margin trading (信用取引) rules of a 30% deposit, at least ¥300,000, and an additional deposit below 20% of the contract value. Elsewhere — the UK, Europe, Canada, Australia, the Gulf — the margins are the ones in your broker’s margin agreement (at least the local regulator’s minimums), so you type yours; India’s margin trading facility has its own MTF calculator. Every figure stays editable, and nothing you type leaves your browser.

Common uses

• Know the price at which a margin loan would be called before you borrow.
• Check how much cash would restore the account after a fall.
• See what a margin loan costs in interest over the time you plan to hold.
• Compare a long on margin with a short sale of the same size.

The formulas

• Long: loan L = entry price × shares − your equity; equity at a price P = P × shares − L. The call comes when equity < maintenance × P × shares, so P_call = L ÷ (shares × (1 − maintenance)).
• Short: credit C = the sale’s proceeds + your deposit; equity at P = C − P × shares. The call comes when equity < maintenance × P × shares, so P_call = C ÷ (shares × (1 + maintenance)). With FINRA’s amounts a share for short stock, the requirement is the greater of $5.00 a share and 30% of the value from $5 (the greater of $2.50 a share and 100% under $5), and the price is found numerically.
• Japan: margin ratio = (deposit − the unrealised loss) ÷ the contract value at entry, unrealised gains not counted; the call comes below the maintenance ratio, at P₀ − (deposit − maintenance × P₀ × shares) ÷ shares for a long.
• Buying power = equity ÷ the initial margin. Interest = loan × rate × days ÷ 360 or 365. Deposit for a call = the maintenance requirement at the price − your equity.

Rules: Regulation T, 12 CFR 220.12 (50% initial; 150% of a short sale’s value, the proceeds included) · FINRA Rule 4210 (margin requirements) (maintenance) · JPX: overview of margin transactions and TSE Brokerage Agreement Standards, rules 46 to 48 (Japan). Investor guides: Investor.gov: margin account · Investor.gov: margin call.

Reading the results

• Margin call price: below it (above it for a short) your equity is under the maintenance requirement, and the broker can ask for cash or sell your shares — without telling you first, and it can change the threshold at any time.
• Cushion: how far the price can move against you before the call, as a percentage of the entry price. Prices can gap past it overnight.
• Margin ratio: your equity ÷ the value of the shares now (in Japan: the deposit after losses ÷ the value at entry).
• The table shows the account at prices around the entry, at the call price and at the price now.

What it leaves out

• House requirements: brokers may ask more than the rules’ minimums, raise them for volatile or concentrated positions, and change them without notice; type your broker’s figures.
• Several positions: margin is usually worked out on the whole account; this calculator takes one position.
• Dividends, stock lending recalls, corporate actions and the costs of trading — the trading cost calculator adds those up.
• Pattern day trader and portfolio margin rules, and futures or options margins.

Limitations

• Brokers can sell your shares without a call, and prices can move past the call price before anything happens: the call price is a level, not a promise of time to act.
• Interest is simple interest on the starting loan; brokers usually charge it monthly on the daily balance and at rates that change.
• For a short, the borrow fee and any dividends you must pay to the lender are not modelled beyond the rate you type.
• This is a calculation of a margin loan’s mechanics, not advice on whether to borrow.

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