IB: Margin on UK stocks?

[Mattybuoy]

First: am I right in assuming that the IB Universal Account is a genuine margin account with respect to UK stocks. I.e. it's not CFDs, you get to own/borrow the actual stock?

Second: if this is true what are the margin rates? There are no figures on the website.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Mattybuoy]

Just to clarify what I mean:

In a standard US margin account, let's say you have $10,000. With 50% margin you then have $20,000 buying power. If you buy $10,000 of marginable stock (and assuming the price doesn't change) then you still have $20,000 of buying power.

If one was to buy instead $10,000 of a UK stock would the same hold true? Are UK stocks marginable?

 

[Mattybuoy]

OK I answered my own question by way of playing around with the IB demo software and reading the message boards.

The answer is yes! You can definitely buy a range of c.1000 UK stocks on margin, and the margin rates for long positions (which are calculated using some sort of risk model rather than the simple rules-based US system) seem to generally be in the range of 30-40%.

Shorting (via stock lending) appears to be restricted to approximately the FTSE 100 only.

I will admit to still being somewhat confused as to exactly how it all works but this would appear to be a genuine retail margin account for a subset of UK stocks.