Deficit balance and employment information

I am planning on signing up for a brokerage.

The online contracts talked about being aware of deficit balance possiblility. I was of the understanding that there would be a margin call before that could ever happen.

Does this happen because they don't execute the margin call at the right point? Is this a common occurence that I should worry about?

Also, they talked about employment information, net worth, etc. I recently finished university and am not employed and was simply given a small money amount to trade with. Is this a problem to get an account? Do you need long term credit history etc?

I assume every brokerage is different, but I thought i'd get a gauge before I decide how to approach this.

Any info would be very appreciated. Thanks.

Stop losses and margin calls are "as soon as possible" type things. If you're running tight and there's a large gap against you they can't call/stop until trading resumes, which means on the other side of the gap.

So there's no guarantees of course, but gaps beyond daily ATR rarely (if ever) happen... so use proper risk and money management. Most gaps occur either around large news events, bank holidays or over weekends so they're not exactly difficult to predict.

As for broker requirements, most don't really care... they're just trying to make sure you aren't risking a substantial portion of your assets. For instance if you're unemployed and have $50k in assets they'd be concerned if you wanted to deposit $50k into your account. I've been self-employed since '03 and subscribe to a credit monitoring service... no brokers have ever checked my credit or employment status.