Question

"A customer has an existing margin account that shows the following: Long Market Value: $50,000 Debit Balance: $30,000 The market value declines to $30,000, the customer is sent a maintenance call, which the customer wishes to meet by depositing fully paid stock. The amount of stock that must be deposited is:"

Answer 1

The amount of stock that must be deposited is $10,000.

Step-by-step explanation:

Generally, the minimum margin is 25% of the Debit Balance. This implies that the account of the customer will receive a maintenance call for 25% of $30,000 which is $7,500 as a cash deposit.

Note that a maintenance call refers to a call to request a customer to provide additional funds when the market value of securities in his margin account has fallen below an established minimum.

However, the customer can decide to deposit other fully paid stock to meet the maintenance call of $7,500 instead of depositing cash. The minimum market value of securities needed in the account can be calculated by dividing the Debit balance by 75%, i.e.

Minimum market value of securities needed = $30,000 / 75% = $40,000

Since there is a $30,000 worth of securities already in the account, the customer will have to deposit additional $10,000 worth of securities, i.e.:

The amount of stock that must be deposited = Minimum market value of securities needed - Debit balance = $40,000 - $30,000 = $10,000

Therefore, the amount of stock that must be deposited is $10,000.