Hello everbody,

I built a pair trading strategy using statarb and machine learning, where I just buy/sell using MOC orders (thus helding overnight positions), but I am not sure about the allowable leverage and when I have to pay interests to the broker, Sorry if it is a elementary question, but I am new to american stock market and missunderstood some points.

Regarding margin accounts, T-reg End of Day requires 50% of stock value as initial margin for both short and long positions.

1- Does it means that, if I have US$50,000.00 in cash, I can use US$25,000.00 as margin to short sell US$50,000.00 in security A and US$25,000.00 as margin to long buy US$50,000.00 in security B? In other words, US$50,000.00 in cash allows me to place simultaneously a MOC order to long buy US$50,000.00 and a MOC order to short sell US$50,000.00? 

2-

a) If the answer to 1 is positive, do I need to keep the proceeds of short selling plus US$25,000.00 in cash in my margin account, meaning a loan of US$25,000.00 (paying interests) from the broker to hold the long position?

b) Or I just need to keep the proceeds of short selling in cash and can use part of my long position as margin for the short sell position, meaning that my own resources can afford this operations and no interest are own to the broker?

3- If 1- and 2-b) are true, this process happens automatically? I mean, with US$50,000.00 in cash, can I just send a MOC order to short sell US$50,000.00 of security A and a MOC order to long buy US$50,000.00 of security B and everything will work fine, without additional actions?

4- If 3 is true and I was able to short sell US$50,000.00 of security A and long buy US$50,000.00 of security B with my initial US$50,000.00 in cash and hold this for 2 days, but then my algo is suggesting to keep security A in long buy and secutiry B in short sell, can I perform the required operations that are buying US$100,000.00 of security A and selling US$100,000.00 of security B with MOC orders (remembering that my cash is still US$50,000.00 if I liquidate all the positions)? Is this operation automatically recognized and allowed by the broker?

5- Does QuantConnect intends to allow integration with just2trade broker? If I am not missing nothing, the flat comission of US$2.50 (plus ECN and other transaction fees) per trade seems to be better than the US$0.005 per share of IB for the size of my positions and the price of the securities I want to work with. Maybe other traders can have the same advantage. 

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

Author