Stock trading and future trading are managed by two different organizations, not the government. Stock trading is managed by NASD, NASD make up rules for stock trading. Any members of the NASD (uch as your brokerage firm must obey their rules. The daytrading buying power rules were set by NASD: http://www.nasd.com/InvestorInformation/MarketsTrading/DayTradingInformation/NASDW_005906 Futures Trading is managed by CME/CBOT. They're seperated from NASD, they're different organizations. They don't have such a rule, in other words, NASD is the pain! If you want to trade stocks but don't want to be limted by the pattern daytrading rule, you need to find a broker is not a member of NASD. Most of them are offshore companies. Try prodigytrading.com or some others, I've an account with them, works great. Clients with less than $25K are not subjected to the pattern daytrading rule. Cheers!
it is also regulated by your balls. Without them, you could never summon the will to pull the trigger.
I am the most risk averse person you would ever meet. Pulling the trigger takes zero balls if you have faith in your skill. The notion that futures are more dangerous than stocks is an opinion held by those who either have no self control or simply do not understand that leverage in futures can't hurt you any more than leverage in any other vehicle.
Sometimes I wish there was a $25,000 limit on futures. We get a lot of stock traders who've dipped below the $25,000 requirement to day trade stocks. They come to our service and start trading futures but are usually undercapitalized by this time. This causes much stress in their trading and the funds deplete even faster. CajunSniper / Puretick.com Administrator-Trader