The Black Box

[wahz]

thats what everyone says, but typically the firm has the power to handle it the way they want, as long as you don't drop below say 40%...they can leave the margineable level where they want it to be. Now if the persons individual acct drops to say the 36% level, yeah, complaince will step in for sure, or you will get a maintainence call...But lets say you are only 10-20% margined, they aren't going to force you to sell..and they probably won't change the requiremnt on you.

if the stock stays down for weeks, and you have a lot of it and you are hovering around 40-45% equity, they will do something about it. But it really depends on the firm and if they know you, blah blah

I have seen them wave a variety of issues. On the other hand, CSFB treated me like crap