SEC Approves Faster Margin Calls for Options Traders' Portfolios
Published Date: 8/14/2025
Notice
Summary
The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) is updating how it checks the value of members’ portfolios during the day to make faster, smarter margin calls. This helps OCC better manage risks and protect its clearing members from surprises. The change kicks in soon and aims to keep the financial system safer without extra costs for members.
Analyzed Economic Effects
4 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 2 costs, 0 mixed.
Revaluation Frequency Increases to Every 5 Minutes
OCC will increase intraday revaluation runs from once every 40 minutes to once every 5 minutes during standard equity trading hours (8:30 a.m. CT to 3:15 p.m. CT). OCC will keep its alert interval at 40 minutes for now but make that alert timing configurable going forward.
Backtest: More Calls, Smaller Average, More Total Margin
OCC's one-year review shows that under the proposed methodology the total number of intraday margin calls would have increased 34% (from 93 to 125), the average margin call would have decreased 19.3% (from $69.3 million to $55.9 million), the minimum call amount would remain $500,000, the largest call would have decreased 21.8% to $682.7 million, and total intraday margin collected would have increased 7.8% (from $6.45 billion to $6.99 billion).
Intraday Revaluations Use Current Positions
If you are a Clearing Member (a firm that clears with OCC), OCC will revalue accounts using current positions during intraday revaluation runs instead of revaluing only start-of-day positions. Revaluations occur during regular trading hours (8:30 a.m. CT to 3:15 p.m. CT) and this change would account for intraday position changes and could reduce a margin call when current positions show a higher profit and loss than start-of-day positions.
No Change to STANS Daily Margin Models
OCC stated that the proposed intraday revaluation changes would not affect OCC's calculation of STANS margin requirements or other models used for daily margining.
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