Pooks, if you clearly tag your 2nd sell order as "short-sale", it will be 1 day-trade. Most of the brokers do go by "how you choose to close the position" as NASD allows them to reasonably believe that you are day-trading. However, NASD also allows the client to contact the broker if he/she does not plan to day-trade. It hardly matters what some of us thinks how day-trade should be calculated. It amtters how your broker's system is coded as allowed by NASD/SEC. In a "frozen" account with <25k, you can still close your existing positions. Some brokers try not to let you open a position if it thinks you are about to do 4 day-trades in 5 consecutive business days, but it is not bullet-proof. Some of the brokers can even still let you open a new position in a so-called "frozen day-trading" account provided you meet some criteria.
Haha, I haven't done it yet. I had a chance but ended up holding half the position into the close.. I got 2 trades for tmrw.. maybe it happens.
Ameritrade now considers the total number of day-trades as: min{#of_buy_trades, #_of_sell_trades}. So, at Ameritrade, if you buy 300 shares in the morning, 200 shares at noon; and then sell 100 shares, 100 shares and 100 shares in 3 different trades; then it is considered 2 round trip trades.