Julia Kagan is a financial/consumer journalist and former senior editor, personal finance, of Investopedia. Gordon Scott has been an active investor and technical analyst or 20+ years. He is a ...

Initial margin is the amount required to open a position, while maintenance margin is the minimum amount needed to keep the position open. Imagine if there was no such thing as a mortgage loan.

Sometimes investors will borrow money from their broker to buy stocks or other securities through what’s known as a margin account. It’s a riskier practice than traditional investing, so strict rules ...

In a traditional brokerage account, you use your own money to buy securities. With a margin account, you borrow money from your brokerage firm to pay for part of your investment. When you leverage ...

Margin in investing contexts refers to the collateral that investors must deposit with their broker when trading securities on borrowed funds. Margin can also be defined as the difference between the ...