i have been buying and selling a stock for about a year now with my broker. And lately i have developed an interest in daytrading, what online service is the best? scott trade, etrade...etc.
A lot depends on what you want to be able to do and how you want to do it. Probably the best thing to do is go through some of the threads here under the retail broker forum and get an idea of the issues. Then go to the brokers' websites and see what they offer. Understand that there is a big difference in "online" trading through your webbrowser, eg, the Ameritrades ands E*Trades, and "Direct" trading, which is what most people here do through brokers like IB, MB, TradeStation, XOOM, etc. Also there is a big difference in the platforms the brokers offer. Some have extensive charting, such as the brokers who use RealTick, and others like IB expect you to provide your own charting.
... and I have a question. What is a daytrade? Just kidding. Hey if you are not going to scalp consider something like freetrade. www.freetrade.com You know that you need $25k equity, right?
To "daytrade" as defined by the SEC is to make 4 or more trades in a rolling 5 day period. Take a typical week with no holidays. You make 2 trades on Monday, none Tues, 1 on Wed, 1 on Thurs, and 2 more on Fri. You made over 4 trades in 5 days so you're labeled as a "patterned day trader." I think Gambler's Anonymous calls it being a "complusive gambler." Anyways, I'm off topic. If you are a patterned day trader, then you are required to maintain $25,000 in your brokerage account, (IB, Etrade, Ameritrade, etc) to continue trading on margin. If you don't have $25,000 in your account, you are only allowed to trade on a cash basis. DNAJ65000
sorry for all the questions, but what do you mean by cash basis? so if i were to wire money to etrade for example via bank account or check or what not would that be alright?