Use Margin Buying Power is an optional setting in the Misc section of your system settings. It is off by default, and most members should leave it off.
What it does
With the toggle off, a system only uses the settled cash in your account as collateral. A cash-secured put is exactly that — fully backed by cash you already hold.
With the toggle on, the system is also allowed to use the margin buying power your brokerage extends to you. Because margin buying power is larger than your cash balance, the system can hold more positions from the same account.
The assignment risk
This is the part to understand before you turn it on.
Assignment is a normal outcome of the wheel. When a put is assigned, you take delivery of 100 shares per contract and you have to pay for them.
If the position was backed by cash, that purchase is already funded. If it was backed by margin, it isn't. Your brokerage lends you the difference, which means:
You end up holding a margin loan against those shares.
Your brokerage charges interest on that loan for as long as you hold it.
If the shares fall far enough, your brokerage can issue a margin call and may liquidate positions to cover it — potentially at the worst possible moment, and not necessarily the positions you would have chosen.
Several assignments landing in the same week compounds this. The upside of margin is more premium collected. The downside is that a drawdown hits harder and your brokerage, not you, decides when enough is enough.
Who this is and isn't for
Leave it off if you're not already comfortable with how margin works at your brokerage, if you'd struggle to fund an unexpected assignment, or if you're running close to your account's limits.
It may suit you if you actively use margin already, understand your brokerage's maintenance requirements, and are keeping cash in reserve to cover assignments.
Margin isn't available on every account type. Cash accounts and most retirement accounts can't use it, and the toggle will have no effect there.
Your allocation still caps the system
Turning this on doesn't override your allocation. The system still won't commit more than you've allocated to it. What changes is what counts as available collateral within that allocation.
If you want the system to trade less, lower your allocation — that's the right control, not this toggle.
Turning it on or off
Open the system.
Go to System Settings.
Find Misc.
Switch Use Margin Buying Power on or off.
Click Save.
The change applies to new entries only. Positions already open keep whatever collateral treatment they were opened with — the system never modifies an open position. Turning the toggle back off does not unwind an existing margin loan.
Related
See Assignment and covered calls for what happens when a put is assigned, and Allocation minimums and brokerage requirements for how allocation is validated.
Margin terms, interest rates, and maintenance requirements are set by your brokerage, not by us. Check their margin disclosure before enabling this.