Margin Requirements, Margin Loans, and Margin Rates: Practice and Principles

Senior Economist and Adviser to the Director of Research, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The author is grateful to Ralph Kimball, Richard Kopcke, Katerina Simons, and Curtis Turner, all of this Bank, for constructive comments. John N. Doyle at National Financial Services Corporation was extremely helpful in clarifying broker-dealer margin practices. Anonymous readers at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System have helped to clarify the study, without necessarily agreeing with its conclusions. Any remaining errors are the author's responsibility.
********** The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System establishes initial margin requirements under Regulations T, U, and X. Regulation T applies to broker-dealers, Regulation U applies to banks [...]