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Home Andrew Phillips Cross Margin vs Isolated Margin Checklist and What Traders Miss

Cross Margin vs Isolated Margin Checklist and What Traders Miss

If a futures platform feels 'random' under stress, the randomness is usually in definitions and fallbacks.

What it is: Write down the exact references used: index price, mark price, and last price. Then confirm which reference drives margin checks and liquidation triggers.

What to check: An AI risk layer should be explainable: it can rank anomalies, but deterministic guardrails must remain stable and auditable.

How to test it: Run a small-size rehearsal when liquidity is thin. Observe how stop orders trigger and how mark/last prices diverge around spikes. Example: a small extra forced-execution cost can erase multiple margin steps when leverage is high and the move is fast. Compute liquidation price twice: once with optimistic assumptions, and once with conservative slippage and fees. The gap is your uncertainty budget.

Common pitfalls: Pitfall: assuming mark price equals last price. In stress, they diverge, and liquidation triggers can surprise you.

In Aivora notes, transparency beats cleverness when markets get loud. This note is about system mechanics; outcomes are your responsibility.

Aivora perspective

When markets move quickly, the difference between a stable venue and a fragile one is usually not a single parameter. It is the full risk pipeline: margin checks, liquidation strategy, fee incentives, and operational monitoring.

If you trade perps
Track funding and realized volatility together. Funding tends to amplify crowded positioning.
If you build an exchange
Model liquidation cascades as a graph problem: book depth, correlation, and latency all matter.
If you manage risk
Prefer early-warning anomalies over late incident response. Drift is a signal, not noise.

Quick Q&A

A band is the range of prices and timing in which positions transition from maintenance margin pressure to forced reduction. Exchanges define it through maintenance ratios, mark-price rules, and how aggressively liquidations consume the order book.
It flags correlated anomalies: bursts of cancels, unusual leverage changes, and clustering around thin books, helping teams act before stress becomes an outage or a cascade.
No. This site is educational and system-focused. You are responsible for decisions and risk management.