Got to go with futures. 10X margin would serve you well. You're not allowed to use pin and glue though.
1. Go with futures. You need a minimum of $2,000 to trade them. But you get about 18x leverage during the day. Half that overnight. You will get wiped out if they go against you though, using that much leverage. 2. Go with Single Stock Futures. They are just like the stocks, no PDT rule, and you get 5x margin, during the day and overnight as well. You need minmum $2,000 to trade these too. 3. Borrow $25,000 to put in your account. Bundlemaker made this suggestion on another thread, that you can open credit card accounts, most with promotional low-interest rates for 6 months. You can then continue to trade options if you still want to. Even just borrowing $10,000 might be enough to trade your account at the same levels as you would if the PDT rule weren't applied to options 4. Learn to buy options in the late afternoon, so you hold them overnight. By the next morning you are free from the PDT rules on them. 5. Try out the online casinos. You can win money at poker, video poker, roulette, baccarat. They will let you play their games for free with play money, which is like a stock trading simulator, it lets you develop your skills in practice. Some of them even let you open a real money account in which they will give you a promotional intial deposit amount, like $10. If you are lucky, you could turn that $10 into $40, $100, and keep going up, without having ever deposited cash of your own. And they're open 24 hours a day, no need to wait for 9:30-4:00 as you do with options trading. My personal recommendation? #5.
#5 would be a lot cheaper and just as fun, unless of course you are already a skilled trader with realistic goals.
Why would you just buy options anyway? That's what Joe public does. Be aggressive and buy at a lower strike and sell two at a higher strike, possibly getting a net credit. If the market rises too high against you, then buy another and sell two more. Eventually time is on your side and the premiums you sold decay, allowing you to exit gracefully. Just one idea if you insist on trading options. Worked well on soybeans for years, until the big freeze that is. .
backspreads - easy money since the market never ever gaps up or down, volatility never explodes, liquidity never dries up....
although im sure def can cover his gamma, the whole point of this thread makes me think somthing big is coming soon