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Maintenance margin
A guarantee in the form of funds or securities deposited by a trader with its broker, or by the broker with the clearing house, that represents a given amount or percentage of the initial margin and that must be maintained throughout the life of the position.
(1) Some exchanges set the maintenance margin and the initial margin at the same level.
(2) If the guarantee falls below the maintenance margin, a margin call is made and a variation margin must be paid to bring the guarantee back up to the initial margin level.
(3) There is some confusion in practice as the term maintenance margin is often used in the sense of variation margin, when in fact variation margin designates the additional deposit required to restore the initial margin.