Hi MrMuppet, Can you please elaborate on the above? Were you talking about stocks here or were you including futures as well? Post #27 on this thread: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/asking-the-right-questions.323516/page-3#post-4708789 seems to tell a different story for futures?
Since OP mentioned PDT, I was talking about stocks only. Futures...well, it's TT, CQG and CTS for retail and except CQG, prices are quite manageable. However I'm not quite sure what 25k will do in futures. Minimum tick values are insane for a beginner and you can't really scale in/out with one contract. ZN is probably the exception, but I don't feel there's a lot of edge since everyone and their mom is playing it due to the advent of the whole NoBSDaytrading/Jigsaw Orderflow marketing machine. I started out with 5k trading 1 lot FGBM a couple (well pre 2008...more than a couple) of years ago, but I went straight to the propshop for a 2k "credit line" and 2 months of X_Trader. Was enough for me to make the turn around, but I'm sure that would not be possibe today anymore. Back then X_Trader was serious edge, but today it's just another front end although a very good one.... So 25k and the ES...or AG's...maybe corn? ....I don't know man, what do you think?
I think you might still be waiting for advice. Here is what to do. Open an account with Interactive Brokers for the IB minimum. I think way smaller than 25k. IB has seamless paper trading where you get $1 million paper account and a live margin account. Start by mostly paper trading. On the logon in box you select either live or simulated. The IB TWS learning curve will take a while. You can also trade tiny futures contracts or a few shares because you need some live experience such as 10 bushel corn contract XC. How much can $10 per one cent of Corn move - sometimes a lot. Next listen to Linda Raschke short term trading videos and read what she has written. She is a short term trader mostly. I am trading a system I read about. It has very specific rules for when not to use it. When the "do not use" condition is met, I have been trading it in the simulated account. System developer i right. It loses money when the condition is not met.
Hey, don't know if this relevant to your trading, but if it is ... What did you think about the tick pilot which had selected stocks trading at five cents increments?
@qlai, it was a failure from the start. There's a bit of discussion on ET regarding this. I'm thinking the whole idea was sold to FINRA by some HFT players.
What intervals would you like for auctions? I think they would leak information. Are these available outside of US? Below is from Tabb Forum. Synchronized Frequent Batch Auctions: A Rebuttal D. Keith Ross, PDQ Enterprises, LLC 18 November 2014 Auctions as a function of equities markets can eliminate pennying, spoofing and gaming, and are especially beneficial as an adjunct to the continuous market. But in the highly advanced and efficient world of electronic trading, implementing synchronized frequent batch auctions would be a major step backwards, causing liquidity as we know it to evaporate and spreads to explode. Auction ideas in various forms are bubbling up at industry conferences and in the media as a way to improve trading conditions in high-speed markets. The London Stock Exchange recently announced that in late 2015 it will pause regular trading for 2 minutes at midday to run an equity auction. Professor Eric Budish and his colleagues at the University of Chicago are convinced that “frequent batch auctions lead to narrower spreads, deeper markets, and increased social welfare,” according to his comments at the European Capital Markets Institute’s Annual Conference in Brussels last month. If the trading ecosystem was composed of only natural buyers and sellers who are satisfied with occasional completion of their intended trades, timed auctions might be helpful. In fact, if that were the case, markets could run an auction once a day at the market clearing price and let everyone go home early. The stock market exists, however, to provide secondary liquidity for public companies that have issued stock, and the demand for that liquidity has created a continuous market for buying and selling. The market environment consists of a variety of participants: investors, traders, market makers, issuers and speculators. In the highly advanced and efficient world of electronic trading, synchronized frequent batch auctions would be a major step backwards. Skipping over the regulatory and logistical hurdles of synchronized frequent batch auctions (SFBA) –which are significant, and whose cost would be orders of magnitude greater than any possible savings or efficiencies – implementing SFBA would cause liquidity as we know it to evaporate and spreads to explode. Today’s equities are priced through sophisticated algorithms that use hundreds of data points as input and make tight and deep markets by hedging quickly to reduce risk. Any artificial blackout of trading, including an interval between auction executions, would mean that the hedging part of a trade would be delayed until the next interval. This would create significantly more risk for each trade. To compensate for this risk, the displayed market would become much smaller and spreads dramatically wider. A blackout period of a full second would easily eliminate at least half of the liquidity that is currently available in any given order book Let’s consider what an SFBA structure would do for the high-speed arms race. The academic thinking seems to be that it would eliminate latency arbitrage, moderate the speed race and improve market conditions. In actuality, the speed race would simply shift to a new target. The new key to success would be how quickly algorithms could enter auctions or cancel out of them. In a world of milliseconds, let’s assume that an auction is run at the top of every second and takes one millisecond to complete. Therefore, at the completion of one given auction, the algorithm will sprint to place the first order in the book for the following auction. The algorithm races to be first in and get position in the potential auction book, waits for 997 milliseconds, and then decides whether to cancel just before the auction is run. The race is not in the continuous market, but for position in the auction book. Same race; different finish line. With that being said, there are many benefits to an auction market structure when employed in a different manner. Auction markets can eliminate pennying, spoofing and gaming, and are especially beneficial as an adjunct to the continuous market. Instead of mandating synchronized auctions on a continuous basis, why not allow an aggressive order to determine when an auction should take place? In other words, a venue could host on-demand auctions initiated by the seeker of liquidity. If the order initiator, or liquidity seeker, is willing to have his or her order paused for a very short period, say up to five milliseconds, an auction can be called that would benefit all participants. The liquidity responders would know that they are responding to a marketable order that can be hedged in the continuous market, and if the order indication to liquidity providers is only the symbol, the confidentiality of the order can be protected. Both parties opt into the trade when it fits their parameters. Auctions as a function of equities markets provide numerous benefits, and their potential has rightly inspired discussion among academic and industry experts. Synchronized frequent batch auctions, however, with their inherent, ongoing dark trading intervals, would send today’s markets back to the dark ages.
My advice to the OP. PDT limits are intended for you. Look for opportunities in low volatility stocks; holding those overnight when needed. Of course that will help with your intra-day limits. Stay conservative, gain knowledge, and grow your capital.