To compute portfolio margin, the portfolio is first evaluated at various forward and volatility shocks and the greatest market loss is selected. Extra contingency margin is added to account for risk factors not captured by the shocks. Compared to standard margin, this can substantially reduce a portfolio’s margin requirement.

However, portfolio margin does not support cross-market margin, meaning each portfolio margin account can only support derivates/base asset corresponding to one underlying asset which we call the denominated base asset. For example, an ETH portfolio margin account can only open ETH options and perpetuals and can only use ETH as base collateral, in addition to the usual USDC.

If a portfolio margin account's collateral falls below its maintenance margin requirement, the account will be liquidated. See Liquidations for more details.

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Portfolio margin does not support cross-market margin, meaning unlike standard margin, there is only one denominated base asset that can be used as collateral in a portfolio.

Margin Calculation

A user's initial and maintenance margin requirements are calculated as follows.

Initial Margin = Portfolio MtM +  
    + (mfactor + Depeg Contingency) 
    * (min(maxLoss, Forward Contingency) + Asset Contingency) + Oracle Contingency

Maintenance Margin = Portfolio MtM +
    + min(maxLoss, Forward Contingency) + Asset Contingency

Where:

• Portfolio MtM is the mark-to-market value of the portfolio (includes all perpetual funding/PNL). This includes the account's USDC balance and all base assets (marked to their current value). Note options are marked with a discounting of 1.0.
• mFactor = 1.25 is a scaling of the maximum loss and associated contingencies used to compute initial margin.
• Depeg Contingency is extra initial margin conditionally required to protect against USDC depegging.
• maxLoss is the maximum loss the portfolio will endure under 23 scenarios comprised of various forward and volatility shocks.
• Forward Contingency accounts for the forward basis for each expiry moving unfavourably against the trader.
• Asset Contingency is extra margin applied to options, perpetual and base assets held in the account.
• Oracle Contingency is extra initial margin conditionally required to protect against inaccurate oracle data feeds.

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Oracle Contingencies are typically zero and only add to initial margin requirements, i.e. they do not change margin requirements for already open positions, but may block opening new positions.

As described in Standard Margin, an account is subject to liquidation if Maintenance Margin falls beneath 0 and can only open new positions if the final state has Initial Margin above 0.

maxLoss

To compute maxLoss, the portfolio’s options, perpetual and base assets are evaluated under 23 forward and volatility shocks. The largest loss is set to maxLoss and potentially used to define the account's margin requirement.

The scenarios are comprised of all spot shocks from -20% to +20%, increasing in steps of 5%. Up/down/static vol shocks for all scenarios between (and inclusive of) -15% and +15%. Only volatility increasing scenarios are used for +20% and -20%. See Portfolio Margin Parameters for an explicit table.

The magnitude of these shocks is explained below.

Shocked Base Value

The account’s base collateral value is shocked by a constant factor under scenario k:

Shocked Base Valueₖ = Base * (1 + Spot Shockₖ) * Spot

Where:

• Base is the balance of the account's denominated base asset.
• Spot Shockₖ is the shock to the spot price for scenario k.
• Spot is the spot price of the underlying base asset.

Shocked Perpetual Value

The account’s perpetual position value is shocked by a constant factor under scenario k:

Shocked Perp Valueₖ = Perp Position * (1 + Spot Shockₖ) * Perp Price

Where:

• Perp Position is the number of perpetual contracts (this number is negative for shorts).
• Spot Shockₖ is the shock to the spot price for scenario k.
• Perp Price is the mark-to-market value of the perpetual.

Shocked Option Value

The account’s option positions are grouped and shocked per expiry. Each expiry i is evaluated for a given shock scenario k. The shocked value for an expiry i is the value of each option position with strike price j calculated with shocked forward and volatility values.

The forward is shocked to:

Shocked Forwardᵢₖ = Forwardᵢ * (1 + Spot Shockₖ)

Where:

• Forwardᵢ is the forward price of expiry i.
• Spot Shockₖ is the shock multiplier for scenario k.

The IV shock is multiplicative. The magnitude of the shock depends on time to expiry and whether or not the shock is positive or negative. We have:

Shocked IVⱼₖ = IV Shockₖ * IVⱼ

IV Shockₖ = 1 + VOL_RANGE * ((30 / 365) / max(1 / 365, Time To Expiryᵢ))**VEGA_POWER

Where:

• IV is the implied volatility of strike j.
• Time To Expiry is the number of years until expiry.
• VOL_RANGE = -0.3 if IV is being shocked down.
• VOL_RANGE = 0.6 if IV is being shocked up.
• VEGA_POWER = 0.3 if time to expiry < 30 days.
• VEGA_POWER = 0.13 if time to expiry > 30 days.

A discount is applied to the options expiry when its net value is positive (else it defaults to 1.0):

Discountᵢₖ =

Expiry Value > 0: exp(-(Interest Rateᵢ * RATE_PARAM_1 + RATE_PARAM_2) * Time To Expiry)
                       * STATIC_SCALE

Expiry Value < 0: 1.0

Where:

• Interest Rate is the risk free rate for an expiry.
• Time To Expiry is the number of years until expiry.
• RATE_PARAM_1 = 1.0.
• RATE_PARAM_2 = 0.12.
• STATIC_SCALE = 0.95.

Finally, an expiry group’s shocked value is calculated by summing the mark-to-market value of each option for an expiry using Black76, with the applied discount:

Shocked Expiry Valueᵢₖ = Σ Shocked Option Valueⱼₖ x Discountᵢₖ

Scenario Analysis

The portfolio’s loss under scenario k is then the sum of perpetual, base and each expiry’s value minus its shocked value:

Portfolio Value =  Base Value + Perp Value + Σ Expiry Valueᵢ

Portfolio Shocked Valueₖ = Shocked Base Valueₖ + Shocked Perp Valueₖ + Σ Shocked Expiry Valueᵢₖ

Portfolio Lossₖ = Portfolio Shocked Valueₖ - Portfolio Value

Where:

• Base Value is the mark value of the account's base balance.
• Perp Value is the mark value of the account's perpetual position.
• Expiry Valueᵢ is the mark-to-market value of the account's option positions with expiry i.
• Shocked Base Valueₖ is the shocked value of the account's base balance for scenario k
• Shocked Perp Valueₖ is the shocked value of the account's perpetual position for scenario k
• Shocked Expiry Valueᵢₖ is the shocked mark-to-market value of the account's option positions with expiry i under shock scenario k

maxLoss is then the smallest (i.e. most negative) portfolio loss under all 23 scenarios:

maxLoss = min(Portfolio Loss(1), Portfolio Loss(2), ..., Portfolio Loss(23))

Forward Contingency

The forward contingency accounts for the forward basis for an account’s options moving unfavourably against the trader.

We consider an up and down scenario where spot goes up or down 5%. For each expiry i, we calculate the basis loss, or the max loss of the up and down scenario for each expiry’s option positions:

Basis Lossᵢ = min(
    min(0, Up Expiry Valueᵢ - Expiry Valueᵢ),
    min(0, Down Expiry Valueᵢ - Expiry Valueᵢ)
)

Where:

• Expiry Valueᵢ is the mark-to-market value of positions in expiry i.
• Up Expiry Valueᵢ is the mark-to-market value of positions in expiry i under the up scenario (5% increase in spot).
• Down Expiry Valueᵢ is the mark-to-market value of positions in expiry i under the down scenario (5% decrease in spot).

The forward contingency is then the sum of each expiry’s basis loss:

Forward Contingency = Σ (ADD_FACTOR + MULT_FACTOR * Time To Expiryᵢ) * Basis Lossᵢ

Where:

• ADD_FACTOR = 1.0
• MULT_FACTOR = 1.2.
• Time To Expiryᵢ is the number of years until expiry.

Asset Contingency

Asset contingency is three small components of margin required for base, perpetual and option positions held in the account:

Asset Contingency = Base Contingency + Perp Contingency + Option Contingency

Base Contingency

The account's base asset has a small margin associated with it, based on the base balance and spot price.

Base Contingency = - Base * BASE_FACTOR * Spot

Where:

• Base is the balance of the account's denominated base asset.
• Spot is the spot price of the underlying base asset.
• BASE_FACTOR = 0.03.

Perp Contingency

The account's perpetual position has a small amount of margin associated with it, based on the number of perpetual contracts and spot price:

Perp Contingency = -abs(Perp Size) * PERP_FACTOR * Spot

Where:

• Perp Size is the number of perpetual contracts (this number is negative for shorts).
• PERP_FACTOR = 0.03.
• Spot is the spot price of the underlying base asset.

Option Contingency

For each short option j in the portfolio, a small amount of margin is associated with it based on the number of short contracts and a small percentage of the spot price:

Option Contingency = Σ min(0, Option Sizeⱼ) x OPTION_FACTOR x Spot 

Where:

• Option Sizeⱼ is the number of option contracts held for expiry i and strike j (this number is negative for shorts).
• OPTION_FACTOR = 0.02.
• Spot is the spot price of the underlying base asset.

Oracle Contingency

This is the same as standard margin oracle contingency, with the exception that Option Oracle Contingency counts the total (absolute value of the) number of long and short options contracts on a given strike, not just the number of short options contracts:

Option Oracle Contingency = - CONFIDENCE_SCALE * Options Size * Spot
    * (1 - min(Spot Confidence, Forward Confidence, Vol Confidence))

Where Options Size is the total number of long and short options contracts for a given strike/expiry. For example, if there are 4 long calls and 3 short puts on the $2000 3 weekly strike, then Options Size = 4 + 3 = 7.

Depeg Contingency

When USDC depegs from $1, the value of mFactor will increase, proportional to the magnitude of the depeg. Specifically, we have

mFactor = mFactor + max(0, 0.99 - USDC Price) * PEG_FACTOR 

where

• PEG_FACTOR = 4.0
• USDC_PRICE is the current price of USDC (measured in USD).

Open Interest Caps

The portfolio margin manager has a cap on the open interest of all instruments it supports. Namely:

• (ETH, BTC) = (750, 15) base asset
• (ETH, BTC) = (2,000,000, 100,000) options
• (ETH, BTC) = (250,000, 12,000) perpetual contracts

These bounds can be adjusted as necessary over time. A low amount of base asset is set due to limited functionality of this instrument at launch. This will be raised when a spot market is available.

Risk Reducing Trades and Risk Assessors

As is the case with the standard manager, on the smart contract level, the portfolio margin risk manager will allow any trade to be conducted so long as it satisfies either of the following conditions:

• the initial margin of the portfolio after the transaction is conducted is positive (IM(post) > 0) OR
• the trade is risk reducing (see the description in Standard Margin).

A subtle but key difference is that closing perpetual positions for portfolio margined accounts is not considered a risk reducing transaction. This is because perpetuals could act as a delta hedge and so removing these positions might increase the risk of the portfolio.

As with the standard manager, the portfolio margin manager will also support risk assessors. In addition to the aforementioned benefits of allowing general risk reducing trades, risk assessors are necessary because computing all scenarios for portfolio margin on chain is expensive.

In order to minimise such gas costs and offer traders large portfolio margined accounts, risk assessors only have to compute 3 scenarios on chain: the "mark-to-market" (mtm) scenario (where spot and vol are static) and the two scenarios used to compute the basis contingency (see below).

This means that the risk assessors cannot allow insolvent positions to be opened.

They can, however, allow liquidatable positions to be opened.

Examples

Consider an account comprised of the following:

• 1 x LONG ETH $1800 CALL (IV = 60%)
• 1 x SHORT ETH $1700 PUT (IV = 65%)
• 700 USDC

where both options have the same expiry (2 weeks) and the corresponding forward is marked at $1740. Assume the risk free rate is r = 4% and the spot price of ETH is $1735.

There are 23 scenarios under which the portfolio is evaluated, these are shown in the table below. Let’s explain how to compute the maxLoss.

Consider scenario 1, where the forward increases by 20% and the volatility increases. For the former, this results in the portfolio being marked to

Forward = 1740 x 1.2 = 2088

To find the shocked volatilities, we know

shocked IV = IV shock x IV 

where

IV shock = 1 + VOL_RANGE x ((30 / 365) / Time To Expiry))**VEGA_POWER

Since VOL_RANGE = 0.60, Time To Expiry = 14/365 and VEGA_POWER = 0.30, we have:

IV shock = 1 +  0.60 x ((30 / 365) / (14 / 365))**0.3 = 1.75414

I.e. the volatility is increased by 75.414% (this is multiplicative).

Hence, the shocked volatilities are:

shocked IV(1800 strike) = 0.6 * 1.75414 = 1.05248
shocked IV(1700 strike) = 0.65 * 1.75414 = 1.14019

Using these values, we have:

Mark Price(1800 call)  = Call(0.6, 1800, 1740, 0.04, 14/365) = 56.27
Mark Price(1800 call, shocked) = Call(1.052484, 1800, 2088, 0.04, 14/365) = 342.49
Mark Price(1700 SHORT put)  = -Put(0.65, 1700, 1740, 0.04, 14/365) = -68.6377
Mark Price(1700 SHORT put, shocked)  = -Put(1.14019, 1700, 2088, 0.04, 14/365) = -40.4607

Thus:

PNL(1800 shocked call) = 342.49 - 56.27 = 286.22
PNL(1700 shocked put) = -40.4607 - (-68.64) = 28.1793
Total undiscounted PNL (2 week expiry) = 286.22 + (28.1793) = +314.399

Next, we compute the discount for the 2 week expiry; since the total PNL of the expiry is positive (i.e. it profits from this shock), a discount is applied. The discount is computed as:

Discount(2 week expiry) = 0.95 * exp(-(1 * 0.04 * 14 / 365 + 0.12)) = 0.841283

So the final discounted PNL is:

Discounted Total PNL(2 week) = 0.841283 * 314.399 = 264.499

In the table below, we repeat this methodology for all 24 other scenarios. From the table, we obtain:

maxLoss = min(PortfolioLoss(shock k)) = -263.536

Now, we compute the forward contingency. Using the scenarios in bold, we have:

Up Losses = [min(0, 60.1447)] = 0
Down Losses = [min(0, -59.2353)] = -59.2353
Forward Contingency = (1.0 + 1.2 * 14/365) * (-59.2353) = -61.9617

As for the other contingencies, the portfolio contains no perpetual or base asset, so the perpetual and base contingencies are both zero.

We now compute the option contingency. The 2 week expiry has a single short option on the 1700 strike, so the option contingency is:

Option Contingency = -0.02 x 1735 x 1 = -34.7

Finally, we compute:

Portfolio MtM = USDC Balance + -mtm(1700 PUT) + mtm(1800 CALL) = 700 + -68.743 + 56.3514 = 687.608

Combining all of this, we have

Maintenance Margin = 687.608 + 1.0 * (-34.7 + min(-61.9617, -263.536)) = 389.372

Next, let’s address the initial margin. To add some complexity, let’s assume:

1. The confidence in the 2 weekly forward is 0.49 and
2. USDC depegs to 0.77.

We now need to compute the oracle contingency and change to the initial margin factor.

For the former, we have:

Option Confidence Margin = -1.0 * (1+1) * 1735 * (1-0.49) = -1769.7

Next, since USDC has depegged, we find:

mfactor += max(0, 0.99 -0.77) * 4.0 = 1.25 + 0.88 = 2.13

Hence, we have:

Initial Margin = 687.608 + 2.13 * (-34.7 + min(-61.9617, -263.536)) - 1769.7 = -1717.33