What is Margin Call?

The broker's warning that your equity has fallen too close to your locked margin — the last stop before forced liquidation.

A margin call is the broker's demand for attention when your account equity falls to a set percentage of the margin locked in open positions — commonly 100% margin level. It means floating losses have eaten so much of your cushion that the broker's collateral is at risk. If equity keeps falling to the stop-out level (often 50% or lower), the platform force-closes your positions automatically, starting with the largest loser, at whatever the market price is at that moment.

A margin call is never bad luck; it is the final symptom of decisions made much earlier — positions too large, too many trades open at once, or no stop losses at all. A trader risking 1% per trade with a stop on every position will simply never see one, because a losing trade closes at a planned point long before it threatens the account's collateral. If you ever receive a margin call, the lesson is about position sizing, not about the market.