this precision you speak of is an illusion imo. these rules tie your hands as an undercapitailzed daytrader and render you into a dangerous situation. trading is all about probabilities (even this may ultimately be a fallacy for most of us, i dunno, see vladiator) you place your bet and must get out quickly when new info renders the trade less probable of a favorable outcome. if anything slows you down like the thought in the back of your head that says i can't get out now cause i blow one of my three allowable trades then you are in deep trouble and you are doomed to fail eventually. you can't daytrade with under 25K, don't even try it. look for other strategies such as swingtrading or the like.
What is most funny is listening to a lot of people say that it is stupid to trade off 2k when in other threads they are bragging about how much they make. Well if you were all such good traders, and couldn't be profitable from 2k, then you obviously don't know about something called SCALING DOWN YOUR POSITIONS? Let me break the math down for you guys who tried to fit the square toy through the round hole. Guy trades 1,000 shares on 25,000 dollars = Guy trading 100 shares on 2,500 dollars. What law of mathematics states that there is a threshold on the account size where making money becomes impossible?
why the hell do they care in the first place if dumb money is lost? dumb money help put the market on the map up front and in the face of the average joe during the last few years did it not? f$%# those egotistical elitist snobs! what do they have now -CRAP for a market that's what they have!
aphie you have to be able to exit a position at the drop of a hat. how the hell are you going to do that on three trades a week??
It doesn't make any sense to me either. If your commissions are per-share then your costs don't go down with higher volume either, so the results would be the same, only the magnitude will differ. It may even be easier to trade with a 100 sh position because it is more likely that it will be executed more quickly at a better price and not be pennied away from or move the market to a higher price like a big order will do. The only difference with a large account is that you will make or lose more money, but the profit % is the same. IMO one who is trading poorly with 25k will fail and one who is trading well with 2k will succeed.
This is exactly right. The only problem with a lower account size would be where the system has a possible large downdraw -- such as trying to ... well ... say trade ES futures with 5k <grin>
Have you heard of swing trading? Not everyone has to go flat at the end of the day with 100 shares. For people with 1 million and trading 10k lots -- great, go flat and enter and exit all you want. However, for the people with accounts < 25k, we have to come up with other methods to make money until our accounts get over 25k.
Gordon, thanks so much for starting this excellent thread. Brokers, NASD, SEC, GOV, UN, organizations of investors, consumers and human rights are starting to pay attention to us. Let's continue to the nice work. Die in our beds with $2K be draining by b*stards or find one chance, just one chance, facing our enemy, fight for freedom. I am going to start a thread to ask for opinions about amendments to the PDT rules from technical point of view. I will make a link to this thread so people can still read and post non-ammendment related discussion here. Is it all right? Or we just stick to here? Thank you.
yes, that's what i am saying. i agree with you. you can't daytrade successfully with under 25 K (and 2K is absolutely insane). this rule doesn't make swingtrading any easier either. what if you get in in the am need to get out in the afternoon? there's goes one of the three trades each week you are allowed. this could happen a couple of times then ....you're out of business for a few days or week. nope can't swingtrade without running your head up against these restrictions. they are pushing the little guy out ..and quite successfully i might add.