Amarin Corp Plc (AMRN)

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Zip, generally correct.

margin is a very profitable form of lending for the big firms. The rate is based upon a spread to their cost of funds and the spread decreases with the size of the account.

The willingness to lend is based mostly upon common sense. They will lend the most if the collateral are US treasuries, then high quality corporates, munis, etc. In the case of a stock portfolio, they will lend more on a diversified portfolio than on one single stock. They will also lend more on JNJ for example than a small speculative stock.

But they generally WILL lend against a single stock portfolio, even if it's AMRN. But what happened last week was they moved the maintenance requirement on AMRN to 100% (this means no release/ no wiling to lend). The decision was made based upon the volatility of the stock. They had no interest in extending a loan based upon collateral that was moving so wildly.


The implications can be very nasty if you're sitting there with a big margin balance and all of a sudden you need to bring in more money, sell securities, perhaps buy back your uncovered option positions (which require margin)


Fwiw, you generally get until day 4 to cover a margin call

Finally, just so you know.. firms lend at their discretion. The firm where I trade will simply not lend on defense stocks, tobacco stocks, probably gun manufacturers also.