How To Determine A Margin

What is a 'margin' and how is it determined?

A margin is an item that's put on an account. What happens is if you borrow from an account either to draw dollars out, and you don't want to sell positions or buy more of the same position with borrowed dollars from the account, then you have a specific amount that you're allowed to have on margin before you get something called a margin call. It is a daily calculation that's done on the account to make sure that there's x number of dollars in there to value the securities themselves.