Since <25K accounts will no longer be able to day trade after Sept 28, I was wondering what some of you are planning to do? As for me, I am weighing two primary options. 1) Obtaining necessary funds by selling my house. Sounds drastic I know. But it is currently my only cash source of sufficient size, and I am certain that trading is where I want to be. 2) Stock options. I like the idea of leverage, and I think I can pick which stocks will move up initially when the market turns. What concerns me is my assumption that options traders will be out of my league at this point. Even though I am now fairly consistently positive in stock trading, I fear that options traders will pick me apart. I can see stock options working (for me) only if the market finds a bottom then starts a steady uptrend. Even if this happens, it may re-test the bottom. Anyway, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts. Under 25K traders, what's next for you?
My advice is to trade Emini Nasdaq100 and S&P500 futures before/instead of trading options. Also single stock futures supposedly can start trading at the earliest, Dec 21,2001, but probably next year. If they have a lot of volume, that might be an option.
I just realized that I omitted one obvious option from the list of choices on the poll: "get the Series 7 and trade with a prop firm like EchoTrade, et. al." I am unable to edit the poll, only Moderators can do this. If one of the Moderators would care to add this option to the poll it would be appreciated.
I'm with Mytrack, their still to release their offical policy. At the moment the cash accounts update realtime. I'll be looking at daytraderpro if Mytrack goes to t+3. Has Cybertrader released policy yet re cash accounts remaining realtime update or t+3?
Speak of the devil,just released http://www.mytrack.com/newdtrules/ 21. Are Cash Accounts affected by these rules? Yes, Cash Accounts are affected. If you meet the definition of a Pattern Day Trader in your Cash Account, you will be subject to the $25,000 minimum equity requirement. .......................................................................................................
Bucky Lee Have you considered the trader who started out 3 months ago with $10,000, doubled his account, but is still below the $25,000 threshold. I would consider that person a good trader to date. Unfortunately, not everyone is in a position to come up with $25,000 right off the bat. I started daytrading with a $20,000 account 3 months ago and have maintained that balance. I will be taking out a small loan against my 401k (now a 41k) to make up the difference. Does this make me a loser. I am seeing a resemblance to TraderX in your writing and will put you on my ignore list if I see any more smarta$$ remarks. For anyone else who doesn't have enough capital, remember that the markets will always be there. Don't put yourself in a position to trade scared because you've overborrowed to fulfill your dream. Keep dreaming and use the time to learn and save up 'risk' capital. I personally am comfortable taking a 'small' loan against other assets but would never consider taking out an outright loan that would force me to trade scared. ****This post was originally a reply to Bucky Lee who has since either been kicked off this thread or has taken the cowards way out and removed his post. Either way, we are far better off.
I read elsewhere on this forum that you can still day trade as much as you want any way you want as long as you take only long positions. Is that correct. Since the market is already oversold, maybe if we're lucky we'll be in a long position for a while.
I have my doubts that someone can switch vehicles without initiating an entirely new learning curve and losing quite a bit of money in the process.
Where did you find that? I'm looking all over for any sings of possibility for undercapitalized daytrader to go at least long, no success so far. I mean to trade securites, you can trade other things in any direction as much as you want. But that's the whole another story, hard to give up what you already know how to do... Bob
Yoda, Check this out: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1994&perpage=6&pagenumber=4