The TradeSmart F&O margin calculator helps you figure out in advance the complete margin requirements for trading in Invest in Futures & Options, writing options or shorting them, and multi-leg orders in derivatives trading. A margin is an amount of money meant to hedge against possible losses from adverse price movements. You can find out how much money needs to be in your account without placing any trades. The various margins you have to pay as an investor are the SPAN margin, exposure margin, premium margin, extreme loss margin (ELM), and mark-to-market margin. The calculator is developed to reflect values as updated from the NSE data.

SPAN margin calculator

SPAN margin stands for Standard Portfolio Analysis of Risk and is calculated on all the futures and options positions a person might hold in their portfolio. Therefore, it is influenced by market volatility and tends to go up with higher volatility. It includes the Value at Risk Margin (VaR) margin and ELM margin and is the initial margin to be collected by the broker. The SPAN margin can be calculated using this F and O margin calculator.

Margins are normally calculated assuming that you want to carry the contracts forward. For intraday trading, they are lower. Mark-to-Market (MTM) margins also don't apply to intraday, Bracket Order (BO) and Cover Order (CO).

Value at Risk Margin

The F&O calculator finds out the VaR margin based on the liquidity of the stock using the exponentially weighted moving average methodology. Scrips are classified based on their volatility. The most volatile stocks will demand a daily VaR margin of 3.5 times the volatility or 7.5%, the higher among the two.

Extreme Loss Margin

This margin is collected to cover losses that go beyond the ones used in the estimated VaR of the F&O profit calculator. It is 1.5 times the volatility in the security prices over the past six months. It is collected on the gross open positions including the ones that are proprietary.