Call loans are super short-term loans that banks give to brokers or brokerage firms. Brokers use the money to offer margins, which give investors the ability to borrow money to play the market.
Let's say you set up an account with a broker to buy $100,000 in shares and they offer a 50% margin. You pay $100,000, and the brokerage uses call loans to let you invest another $50,000. The call loan is backed up by the securities in the account, so the loan is pretty low risk (which means low interest rates). Brokers have strict rules about how much of a margin they give clients, so even if the value of your investments falls, they still have enough dough to pay off the loans and make some bucks.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is Forced Conversion?59 Views
Finance allah shmoop what is forced conversion Okay this is
forced conversion Yeah this is also forced conversion and so's
this Yeah that is the issuer of this particular bond
Like the company who borrowed money has the right as
described in the indenture to force you to convert the
bond either into and say twenty five shares of common
stock or something else Which sort of implies that a
stock price the over under price of breaking evens about
forty bucks a share takes you get that thousand dollars
divided by the twenty five shares Think it's you forty
bucks a share or the issuer or company who sold
the bond in the first place can simply call the
bond and force converted into cash for the small conversion
premium of ah two point five percent or that's twenty
five bucks in this thousand dollars par value bond So
in this sense essentially the break even Numbers actually 41
dollars a share not forty there because you get an
extra little premium bump there if they force you to
convert the bond or debt into equity Got it We'll
force conversion in a bond sense is usually something cos
do when they can either refinance the bond at cheaper
interest rates or are doing so well operationally that they
have enough cash Teo just retire their debt They call
it back They buy it back save the interest charges
and quick cash toe work doing something else Either way
it's usually weigh less painful than the other flavour of 00:01:30.926 --> [endTime] forced conversion
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