What is Margin Call?
A broker alert (or forced closure) when your account equity falls below the margin required to maintain open positions.
Margin call is the warning issued when your account equity falls to a critical percentage of the margin required to keep your open positions alive. The threshold varies — typical retail brokers issue margin calls at 50% margin level and force-close at 30% (the stop-out level).
Margin level is calculated as: (Equity / Used Margin) × 100. If you have $10,000 equity and $5,000 used margin (across all open positions), margin level = 200%. Drop to $2,500 equity and margin level = 50% — that's the margin call. Drop further to $1,500 and the broker starts closing your largest losing position first.
Margin calls are not negotiable — they are automated. The way to avoid them is not "I'll deposit more if I get a call" — by the time the call comes, you have minutes to act. The proper defense is position sizing: never use more than 20% of your account in used margin even on high-conviction trades.