Having built myself up from nothing more than once, I strongly disagree. A good trader with a good edge can make money without any capital. If you're just staring, know nothing, and have no mentor then sure, lots of capital is good.
i'm very disappointed to hear this kind of nonsense from ET member for 3 years and >2K posts..i don't know how much you trade or make from stock market, but because of this PDT rule the sweetest group of the market participants just has been killed. you probably heard that stock market is a zero sum game? for every winner there is a loser. all those housewife's,gamblers,kids with sweaty hands trying to make a fortune from their 3 -5K accounts..those are the best of the best...or you prefer to deal with GS or some other "pros", who can place an order to buy 250K shares on stock with average volume of 30 K and withdraw it even before you try to sell to him @ market?
I thought this was the land of the free! Why put a limit on my trading with my own money. It has no effect on anyone else, its my money. GS
If I want to day trade with $24k, $15k or $2k what business is it of your's or the governments? Your statement that "No one with less than 25K has any business trying to day trade anyways" is utter BS. I know many people who started with prop deposits of 5 or $10k and with proper use of leverage have increased that amount day trading by many multiples. In many cases 500k+. Under your rules, they'd have no chance. What will you suggest next? That someone can't open a restaurant unless they have x amount of capital? It's a free country or at least it used to be.
Why put a limit on my trading? I can go to a casino (40 miles away) or vegas and put down all the money I have. Over time the casino will have all of it. This state also wants me to play the state lottery, no limit on the amount I can spend, yes I do play it from time to time. GS
3 buys and 1 sell is one daytrade, not three right? If you make 2 seperate stock or option buys for the same stock or option (meaning 2 individual orders and not partials fills off one order) then sell the stock or option in one order that very same day, my firm counts it as 2 day trades. This is how they were instructed to interepret the PDT rules by our regulators. I have heard that some other online brokerage firms may have been intrepreting things differently, so you will want to check with your broker to see how they enforce things. To answer Maverick 74s question, lots of customers have gotten frustrated with PDT rules and moved over to trading futures including single stock futures. This is further proof that the SEC did not create this PDT rule to protect the public. Single stock futures is something that I may have to investigate soon.