Margin Explainer

What is Margin

Margin is the collateral that you need to post when entering into a leveraged derivatives contract. The amount required to enter into a new position is referred to as Initial Margin. If the trade against you, the unrealised loss in your position is adjusted against the initially posted margin. You can keep your position open as long as the unrealised pnl adjusted margin is greater than the Maintenance Margin. Once Maintenance Margin is breached, liquidation process is triggered.

Available Margin Modes

Delta Exchange offers three margin modes

1. Isolated Margin

2. Portfolio Margin

3. Cross Margin

Margin Mode Support

Not all contracts support all margin modes. Therefore, the choice of margin mode for an account will have a bearing on what contracts can be traded in that account.

Isolated Margin

All contracts support Isolated Margin mode. Therefore, in an account where Isolated Margin mode is selected, you can trade all contracts listed on Delta Exchange

Portfolio Margin

Only USDT settled futures, perpetuals and options on BTC and ETH support Portfolio Margin mode

Cross Margin

Only USDT settled futures and options contracts support Cross Margin mode

Salient points about margin modes

• Margin mode is an account level property. Therefore, for a given account/ subaccount, you can select only one margin mode.

• You can change the margin mode of an account/ sub-account from the margin mode selector on the top of the order placement panel or from the sub-account management page.

• It is not possible to change the margin mode of a position or order. Therefore, margin mode of an account can only be changed when the account does not have any open positions or orders.