I have been in strategy development mode and doing very little trading for a few years. At this point I don't understand the pattern daytrading rules as it may apply to my situation. I have a margin account but I do not intend to use margin right away. I do not have $25,000 in the account. Trades do settle right away with a margin account otherwise I have to wait 3 days or something to use the money again, that is good. My strategy should make 10 to 20 trades per day but no margin usage. Does the pattern daytrading rule just limit my use of margin or will they stop me from trading after the pattern is recognized?
When you get your answer....... a way around this might be to open several cash accounts with different brokerages? Michael B.
I have gotten a variety of answers to this question in the past, the text on the IB site seems to say that all trading will be halted for 5 days but some emails I had with them seemed to indicate that only margin would be affected. With a lot of these brokers, (thinking of mytrack here) you pretty much have to try it to find out. I'm thinking that maybe somebody here has found out that way and can PM me or something. TIA