A sudden hike in margin requirements on Tuesday for certain lines of UK stocks by Cantor Index, a subsidiary of US interdealer broker Cantor Fitzgerald, has seriously annoyed many of the firm's spread betting and Contracts-for-Difference (CFD) clients.
Cantor raised margins from 10% to 70% on a number of stocks, including software vendor EasyScreen. Cantor, which hedges its CFD business in the stock market, has built up a large stake in EasyScreen over the last few months.
Sources say that Cantor's hike was triggered by a squeeze from its own stock lender, although a...