Overview

In derivatives trading, margin is the amount required to buy or sell leveraged positions. The initial margin and the maintenance margin respectively refer to the minimum margin required to open a position and maintain the position. Since different traders have different trading strategies, FTK will use two different margin mechanisms:

• Isolated Margin: The margin allocated to a position is limited to a certain amount. If the margin of the position is lower than the maintenance margin, the position will be forced to close. Under this mechanism, traders can still increase or decrease the margin of this position.
• Cross margin: The margin is shared between positions (except for the currency-margined contract, where the BTC and ETH margins are not shared). All the balance of the trader's transfer account, and the profit and loss generated by all futures contracts will be used as the margin for futures contracts. When needed, a contract's position will draw more margin from the account balance to avoid liquidation.

Isolated Margin

In the isolated position mode, the trader's maximum loss is limited to the initial margin used. When a position is liquidated, any available balance of the trader will not be used to increase the margin for that position.

When using isolated margin, traders can adjust their leverage in real time through the leverage slider.

Set and adjust isolated margin

Users default to cross margin. Users can enable isolated margin through the leverage slider on the order control panel on the left side of the trading panel. The further you move the slider to the right, the higher the leverage and the less guaranteed amount will be used for that position. Note that the leverage for each contract will be saved after selecting it, even if the position is fully closed.

When using isolated margin in a position, the margin amount of the position is adjustable, that is, traders can choose the leverage and liquidation price they want. The trader's liquidation price for that position is displayed in the Open Positions tab and is continuously updated as leverage is adjusted.

Isolated Margin and Mark Price

During extremely volatile bull or bear markets, the market may temporarily trade away from the mark price.

If the price of buying and selling is significantly far from the mark price, the trader will immediately see the unrealized loss when opening the position. However, it should be noted that this does not mean that the trader must lose money. In such market conditions, it is wise to pay attention to your liquidation price and avoid using the highest leveraged isolated margin. Otherwise, the trader's position may be liquidated quickly due to possible unrealized losses immediately after opening the position.

Cross Margin

Cross margin refers to using all available balance to avoid forced liquidation. Realised profits on any other positions can be used to cover the margin on losing positions.

This method is useful for traders who hedge existing positions, and also for arbitrageurs who do not want to expose one side of their position to risk due to liquidation.

Please note: All positions are initially set to “Cross Margin” by default. BTC and ETH margins are not shared under the full position of currency-margined contracts.

Adjust position method

1. Go to the contract trading interface, and click "Cross position" on the screen.

1. A confirmation screen will appear. Please select the margin mode of your choice. Then click Confirm. Please note:

2. Switching margin mode is only available for selected contracts.

3. Cross margin mode can share your margin balance across all positions on the same type of asset. For example, if you have selected the cross margin mode on the BTCUSD perpetual contract, the BTCUSD perpetual contract positions can only share the BTC margin balance .

1. You can repeat the steps above to switch between Crossing and Isolating modes. Please confirm that you have selected the margin mode of your choice before opening an order or entering a market.

Important:

1. All contracts and positions are preset to [Cross] mode;
2. Switching margin mode is only available for selected contracts;
3. Please make sure you have enabled your selected margin mode before opening an order or entering a trade;
4. In the same trading pair, any pending order or position adopts the same margin mode and cannot be changed;
5. In cross-margin mode, margin can only be shared with assets of the same type. For example, in the cross-margin mode, all USDT in the U-margin contract wallet can be used for all U-margin contract trading pairs. All BTC in the coin-margined contract wallet can be used for trading pairs of all BTC contracts (including perpetual contracts and delivery contracts).