I live in the UK and I am looking for a way for me to be able to trade US stocks but dont yet have $25000. Would it be possible for me to open a daytrading a/c with someone like questrade with just $5000 or so? My brother lives in Canada. Im wondering if there's a way I could either use his information to open the account and trade it myself, or if I could just pretend that I lived there aswell and open my own account?
I am with questrade. No PDT rule, trade as much as you want 3x margin with only $250 in account They don't accept americans however. I think opening account in some other's name is criminal offence now - expect FBI antiterrorist squad at your door soon ...
Have your brother open the account in his name, and then you and he can send in the form giving you trading authority for that account. Shouldn't matter where you live for that.
interesting. What abouth the money side of things though? Would I be able to withdraw money straight into my UK bank account if I was the authorised trader for the account?
No, you would not. The account would be linked to your brother's bank account. He has to provide a copy of picture ID, and a cheque made out for a small sum ($5, I think) to verify the link to his bank account. All withdrawals are deposited into his account, or in the case of cheques, to his address. He would have to re-route them to you. (You should check with QT and make sure that he actually can give trading authority to someone residing in the UK.)
Thanks runningonempty. That's kind of what i thought.... I also can't seem to find a price on the various platforms questrade seem to offer. I demo'd them a while ago back when they let UK people trade with them if they had just ã5k but they appear to have changed that to ã100k! They used (I think) cybertrader as software back then which I loved but have got rid of it and use questradePRO and questradeELITE....