What qualifies as "pattern day trader"?

Discussion in 'Options' started by Aquarians, Mar 25, 2021.

  1. Many of you don't have this problem since you got more than $25,000 in your account. For accounts with less, there is some rule saying "a pattern day trader is a regulatory designation for those traders or investors that execute four or more day trades over the span of five business days using a margin account".

    It's not clear to me how they label series of executions as "day trade". Open and close a position in the same day, that's clearly a day trade, but what if I buy 100 shares of stock and sell 99? Keep 1 till the next day? Am I still a day trader?

    So again:

    1) Buy 100 shares of stock at start of day, sell 100 shares of stock at end of day. End of day position on stock = 0 shares.

    2) Buy 100 shares of stock at start of day, sell 99 shares of stock at end of day. End of day position on stock = 1 share.

    Question: will both of the series of executions above be labeled as "pattern day trader" if more than 4 of them are executed over the span of 5 business days?
     
  2. If you use triangle, H&S, etc then you are pattern day trader
     
  3. What about a sewing machine?
     
  4. then you qualify as machine learning
     
    .sigma, Apologetik, LS1Z28 and 2 others like this.
  5. Girija

    Girija

    Any time you end in sell that counts as a day trade. Why don't you test it and see if you can outsmart the system.
     
    TrailerParkTed likes this.
  6. Fonz

    Fonz

  7. Fonz

    Fonz

    (Margin account...) sorry for the typos