3 days to clear on stocks. Trade deep in the money options with tight spreads with a delta of .90 or higher in lieu of the underlying to overcome this delay. If u want to primarily be flat end of day and are trading on small timeframes-- weeklies are best -- lowest premium -- and by going deep u virtually eliminate impact of impied volatility and time decay. In addition you are using less capital but capturing virtually the entire move of underlying-- giving u mich better return on capital with less capital risk exposure.
I made a calculation that for a cash account it looks like with a 10k account, you can make one 2.500 dollar day trade every day, which helps a little.
Also, you cannot make 4 day trades in a 5 day period. You can ONLY make 3. You can place the fourth order, but will not be able to exit it (the same day) without it tripping the PDT rule. Another thing about the cash account. If you're using just options that's one thing. And some people think by eliminating the Margin Aspect of the account you will get around it. This is partially true. If you're trading equities, you'll run into the issue rather quickly that it takes 3 days for those trades to clear. The easiest way to get around the PDT rule would be to deposit $25,000 or trade futures/forex.