Well, all of a sudden I can't trade stocks anymore. My orders are being rejected due to pattern day trade rule violation. Only problem is I have 100k in my account. THey better get this fixed soon.
Here's an update on what happened. I trade both stocks and futures with IB. And apparently IB actually has two separate accounts, one for futures and one for stocks. I had just placed a large futures trade that tied up 80k in margin, which was transfered to the future account. This left my stock account with only 20k and thus under the 25k rule. The money moves back at the end of the day...but just something for people to be aware of. IB says they are reviewing their policy on this.
That sucks. Whats the point of having a universal account? Would you be better off having seperate stock and future accounts?
But if you had separate accounts you would have had to open a smaller futures position. There's no double dipping with margin. (Is that what you wanted to do here?) You can't take the same margin and apply it to a futures position AND still have it available for capital in a daytrading stock account.
I should have been a bit more clear, but IB keeps the money in the future account even AFTER you exit the futures trade. So I had all 100k in cash, but still couldn't trade. Thats my main concern.