CashMargin (FIX tag 544)

charFIX 4.4

CashMargin (tag 544) is a char field defined in FIX 4.4. It appears in 8 message types, always optionally. It is an enumerated field with 3 defined values.

At a glance

Tag: 544
Name: CashMargin
Datatype: char
Dialects: FIX 4.4
Messages: 8
Valid values: 3

What the specification says

Identifies whether an order is a margin order or a non-margin order. This is primarily used when sending orders to Japanese exchanges to indicate sell margin or buy to cover. The same tag could be assigned also by buy-side to indicate the intent to sell or buy margin and the sell-side to accept or reject (base on some validation criteria) the margin request.

Descriptions are quoted from the FIX Orchestra sources under the Apache 2.0 licence.

A real message using tag 544

NewOrderSingle · FIX 4.4

Tag	Field	Wire value	Meaning
8	BeginString	FIX.4.4
9	BodyLength	117
35	MsgType	D	Order – Single
49	SenderCompID	BOARTEAM
56	TargetCompID	COUNTERPARTY
34	MsgSeqNum	2
52	SendingTime	20240101-12:00:00.000
11	ClOrdID	ORD-10042
544	CashMargin	1	Cash
54	Side	1	Buy
60	TransactTime	20240101-12:00:00.000
40	OrdType	1	Market
10	CheckSum	002

Edit and decode it yourself

Shown with | separators for readability. On the wire FIX uses SOH (0x01), an invisible control byte — and because BodyLength and CheckSum are computed over the actual bytes, the two forms have different checksums. Both are valid and both decode here.

Open in the full decoder →

Generated from the FIX 4.4 dictionary and verified at build time: it parses and validates with no issues. Open the decoder to try your own message.

Valid values

A value outside this list is not a parse error — the message still decodes — but validate() reports it as validate/value-not-in-enum.

Value	Meaning	Symbolic name
1	Cash	CASH
2	Margin Open	MARGIN_OPEN
3	Margin Close	MARGIN_CLOSE

Where tag 544 appears

Requiredness is a property of the message, not of the field: the same tag can be optional in one message and conditionally required in another.

Message	MsgType	Requiredness	Where in the message
CrossOrderCancelReplaceRequest	t	Optional	inside the SideCrossOrdModGrp component
ExecutionReport	8	Optional	directly on the message body
MultilegOrderCancelReplace	AC	Optional	directly on the message body
NewOrderCross	s	Optional	inside the SideCrossOrdModGrp component
NewOrderList	E	Optional	inside the ListOrdGrp component
NewOrderMultileg	AB	Optional	directly on the message body
NewOrderSingle	D	Optional	directly on the message body
OrderCancelReplaceRequest	G	Optional	directly on the message body

Wire format

A single character. Most char fields are enumerated, so the value is one of a fixed set rather than arbitrary text. @boarteam/fix keeps the value as a string and, for enumerated fields, reports validate/value-not-in-enum when it is not a defined value.

Read tag 544 in TypeScript

decode.tsts

import { createFixEngine } from "@boarteam/fix";import { dictionary } from "@boarteam/fix-dict-fix44";const fix = createFixEngine(dictionary);const { message, issues } = fix.parse(raw);const cashMargin = message.fields[544]?.raw;// e.g. "1" — Cash// The dictionary also carries the labels:const label = fix.dictionary  .fieldByTag(544)  ?.enumValues?.find((e) => e.value === cashMargin)  ?.description;

Decode this in your own code

The same engine that produced the decoded example above is an Apache-2.0 npm package with zero runtime dependencies. It runs in Node and in the browser, and parse() returns problems as data instead of throwing.

npm i @boarteam/fix @boarteam/fix-dict-fix44

Try the decoder Source on GitHub