The balances dropdown in the desktop trading platform neatly displays your account balances. View your account's cash balance and other figures such as the total value of long or short options positions in your portfolio.
Where is the balances dropdown menu?
Click the blue Balances (Bal) dropdown menu located immediately to the right of your account number. Below is an example of an individual margin account.
What does each line item mean?
Line items displayed are dependent on your account type
The line items you see listed below are dependent on the account type you have. For example, a cash and IRA account generally will not have a short equity line item.
- Cash: Idle cash plus proceeds from any short equity sales.
- Maintenance Excess: Amount of excess cash and/or equity outside of your maintenance margin requirement.
- Starting Day Trade Buying Power: Your account's maintenance excess at the close of the previous day (static number).
- Long Equity: Amount of long stock or ETF shares.
- Long Equity Derivatives: Total value of long equity/ETF options.
- Short Equity Derivatives: Total value of short equity options.
- Short Equity: Total value of short equity/ETF shares.
- Effective Crypto Buying Power: Amount of buying power for cryptocurrency trading