Ukraine crisis ‘made VM three times IM’ on CME commodities

Variation margin requirements for commodities derivatives traded at CME were three times the levels of initial margin last month, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to spikes in the prices of oil, wheat and natural gas.

“Our largest one-day increase in the initial margin base across all accounts was less than 2.5%, which equates to about $5 billion as our largest increase over the period,”