Hi All, I have used Ameritrade for 20+ years in a variety of accounts. I have always been able to sell a stock at night to execute at the market open the night before and immediately receive buying power to put in a buy order at 9:30am as well. For example, if I had 10K in QQQ I could sell it at market open the night before, receive that 10K immediately, and buy 10K of GLD at next market open. I didn't need to wait for the trade to go through so I could trade it at 9:31 the next day. I have noticed that this isn't working the last couple of weeks. I get no additional buying power when selling the night before at market. Has anyone else seen this? Could this be Schwab related? I contacted Ameritrade too, but assume it will take like 3+ days to hear back (and who knows if the answer will be accurate), so I wanted to post in here too. Thank so much.
I called Ameritrade. Apparently the "orange" account (ToS) does not allow you to do this, but the "green" account (not ToS) does. I simply switched my IRA accounts to be "green" accounts.
Sure. If you have systems where you trade at the market open, if you have a "green" account you can sell a stock at market at say 8PM the night before for the 930AM open and use the proceeds from the sale to buy an equal amount at the 930AM open in another stock or ETF. Therefore, you don't need to wait until 9:30:01 to get the proceeds and scramble to make the 2nd trade. This only works though in an account that doesn't have special features, such as futures, and an account that is not able to use Think or Swim. Hope that helps. Thanks.