Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background.

Why do some stocks have a higher margin requirement?
It's about how volatile the instrument is. Brokers are concerned not about you but about potential lawsuits stemming from their perceived inadequate risk management - letting you trade extremely volatile stocks with high leverage.  On top of that they run the risk of losing money in scenarios where a trader shorts a stock with all of the funds, the company rises 100% or more by the next day, in which case the trader owes money to the broker. If you look in detail you'll see that many of the companies with high margin requirements are extremely volatile pharmaceutical companies which depend heavily of FDA approvals.