Special Cases * Accounts that at one time had more than 25,000 USD, were identified as accounts with day trading activity, and thereafter the Net Liquidation Value in the account dropped below 25,000 USD, may find themselves subject to the 90 day trading restriction. The restrictions can be lifted by increasing the equity in the account or following the release procedure located in the Day Trading FAQ section. * The proceeds of an option exercise or assignment will count towards day trading activity as if the underlying had been traded directly. Deliveries from single stock futures or lapse of options are not considered part of a day trading activity.
too many complaints against IB, and they have the most shills making sure that any negative comments against them are scrolled off the front page by their own self congradulatory comments, sort of like jerk-off comments... either way, if you do your option trades in a Cash account instead of a Margin account and do not intermixxxxing those trades with equity trades then you should not be subjected to the PDT rule. call around, and start with Think or Swim, they're the best.
My understanding of IB's policy is that the account is frozen for 90 days or until the account balance is brought higher than $25k, whichever comes first. That doesn't sound too unreasonable to me. It just means that you cannot daytrade with less than $25k.
I believe your 25k account is only frozen after it has been PDT flagged. Shouldn't be any different if you have over 25k or a smaller account as long as the criteria for PDT haven't been met. A small account flagged is frozen until it is reset or funds upped to 25k, and a 25k account frozen if flagged and falls below 25k, regardless of the reason, and must either be reset or funded above 25k. SEC regs, not IB's choice. In my opinion, one of the most fucked up rules in existence.
considering you can open a futures or forex account with 1K and day trade it without restriction, yes, one of the silliest rules in existence.
Isn't it also true that much more leverage is available on those other instruments? Never did buy the SEC reason for the PDT rules. All the brokers I used in 5 years only allowed 4 -1 day, and 2 to 1 night for PDT.
when I made the switch from trading mostly equities to tradiing mostly futures, I took all but 20K of my money out of my equity account and had no issue trading the next day...just couldn't daytrade. so I think you have a valid complaint with your broker / clearing firm
SEC has no jurisdiction over futures or forex. That could change with Paulson's latest proposal that includes merging the SEC and the CFTC. That scares me. A few years ago the SEC chairman at the time commented that he saw no reason futures should be allowed more leverage than securities.