The per-period margin pull is bounded by a safety envelope set by your risk profile, and it rampstoward the ceiling gradually rather than slamming to it — under volatility the growth-optimal leverage sits below the max, so "grow fastest" is itself a ramp. Three profile dials shape it:
- Loan ceiling (
maxBorrowPct). The deepest the loan goes as a share of the portfolio (Balanced 45%). - Crash buffer (
crashSurvivalPct). How big a market drop the position can ride out before a forced sale (Balanced 30%) — the bigger the buffer, the further back from the margin-call edge. - Ramp per period (
ltvRampPerPeriod). The most leverage can rise in a single period (Balanced 2%), so it climbs toward the ceiling over many periods, not on day one.
The utilization buffer is a broker fact, not a dial. Maintenance margin defaults to a class-level ≈ 33.5% (so a forced sale fires near ≈ 66.5% LTV), but it's a broker requirementyou can state per sleeve in Advanced — it's not fixed. Floating a bill is cash-neutral, so it's bounded only by this envelope; paying down debt principal costs real cash, so it's additionally bounded by your cash cushion (cashCushionMonths of bills kept in chequing). The four leverage dials above come from the risk profile — see the presets table; per-sleeve capture and maintenance (Advanced) follow a class default instead.