Let's say I am trading with a $10k stake and have it split between two separate margin accounts with the same brokerage. Can I make three day trades in 5 days on each account for a total of 6 day trades in the rolling 5 day period? I am assuming that if I have accounts at two separate brokerages, I can make three day trades at each, no problem... am I correct? Reason I am asking is I just reopened my account at IB but I will keep the Alpaca account open, too. So the whole wato will still be way under $25k but still enough to run a position or two on each account. I have been doing a lot of overnight holds recently so I can keep my hand in and not have to limit my trading to one day a week LOL! Thing is, once I have used up my day trades, I can't exit a trade that starts looking bad before the closing bell and I might have to ride a loser all night. Anyway I just got the idea to open a third account, put a couple thou in it, and have ANOTHER three day trades available for a total of 9. Is this legal, and is it possible? I really don't want to trade FOREX or futures or anything other than stocks and ETFs and the whole idea of cash account trading is just bizarre, with the business about the money from a sale needing a few days to "settle" LOL! I know I would get all tripped up doing that. A margin account is so much simpler except for that metric-assed goshdarned PDT rule.
Multiple accounts for increasing allowed number of day trades?
- Thread starter GrowleyMonster
- Start date
Actually moving would be impractical for us until Mrs. Monster retires. I was rocking a $50k account last year, tried something that in hindsight was pretty dumb, took a bad beat, decided to stop trading for a while, got back in the game a couple months ago with the understanding that I didn't pile a whole bunch of cash into brokerage. I have almost enough in checking to fund up but it's not politically/domestically expedient at the moment. Simply using an offshore broker could work but commish is an issue. Also we don't use WinDOHs or Mac and it seems most offshore brokers only offer platforms that run on those systems, or else web-ware. The reason I started with IB is that TWS runs on Linux just fine. Alpaca has an easy API to work with and I like TradingView charting, which interfaces with Alpaca fairly well. Hopefully within a year I will have traded up to $25k or else Mrs. Monster will give her blessing and I can just fund up. Really, if I can't trade up to $25k+, not sure how badly I want to keep trading, anyway. It's fun and all, and this go-round I am not losing money so far, but I don't want to be an old man (Only 61 now, so young that I can't even apply for Social Security yet) by the time I can trade with the big kids again.
Problem with PDT is when you buy a stock, the closing minutes of the day are your last chance to change your mind and bail, before an overnight ride or a weekend. Sometimes at the last minute, bailing looks like the right move, but if you have already made your three day trades, you are SOL. PDT rule hurts small accounts more than it helps. You get in a trade and you are stuck in it when it turns sour in the afternoon. I could see limit of 3 day trades per day, maybe. That would give us little guys some flexibility. I could even see small players being denied margin trading rights or even short selling rights. New guys can get their nuts in a crack shorting or trading on margin. So I could go along with that. I seldom do either one, anyway. But I am used to being able to buy and sell the same stock not once but multiple times a day when appropriate. Now I can't even do it once, except for 3 times in 5 days. Well, pretty sure using two brokerages will at least give me 6 intraday trades. So one or two good trading days a week plus swing trades. But it would be cool if I could have two accounts at either IB or Alpaca, and have three day trades per account.
Problem with PDT is when you buy a stock, the closing minutes of the day are your last chance to change your mind and bail, before an overnight ride or a weekend. Sometimes at the last minute, bailing looks like the right move, but if you have already made your three day trades, you are SOL. PDT rule hurts small accounts more than it helps. You get in a trade and you are stuck in it when it turns sour in the afternoon. I could see limit of 3 day trades per day, maybe. That would give us little guys some flexibility. I could even see small players being denied margin trading rights or even short selling rights. New guys can get their nuts in a crack shorting or trading on margin. So I could go along with that. I seldom do either one, anyway. But I am used to being able to buy and sell the same stock not once but multiple times a day when appropriate. Now I can't even do it once, except for 3 times in 5 days. Well, pretty sure using two brokerages will at least give me 6 intraday trades. So one or two good trading days a week plus swing trades. But it would be cool if I could have two accounts at either IB or Alpaca, and have three day trades per account.
Sure, you can get around the PDT rule by using multiple brokers. The limit was raised a few years back, it's now 4 trades per week.
https://tradersfly.com/blog/pattern-day-trade-rule-pdt/
https://tradersfly.com/blog/pattern-day-trade-rule-pdt/
No, still 3 in and out day trades. You get stuck in the fourth. If you find an exploit in the platform and manage to close the 4th one, you get flagged and you know the rest. I have been blocked from selling the 4th trade. I got around it once and got flagged, had to do the reset.
Another interesting idea... it appears that if day trades are less than 6% of all a trader's trades, then he is not flagged even if he makes four or more day trades. And now we have brokers with zero commissions. If I open 200 positions, say, and hold them overnight, then I can make 200 x .06 = 12 day trades scott free. Am I right? Am I reading that correctly? So I buy 200 different penny stocks, but only one share of each, and sell them the next day, and so I have 200 swing trades of which some will be winners, some losers, many won't change a cent. Maybe just maybe a small net loss. But it opens up the day trades. Does this make sense? The broker's API and a bit of Python could easily make a bot to do this every day, select stocks and buy them at the open and then sell what were bought yesterday. The whole transaction could take just a few seconds and generate zero commissions, only the spread, which should be less than a cent, with the gains and losses being small, and pretty much averaging out flat. Comments?
Can I make three day trades in 5 days on each account for a total of 6 day trades in the rolling 5 day period?
Yes you can, and with 3 accounts you have 9 daytrades, few time ago I traded with 3 accounts with less than $5K each.
Yes you can, and with 3 accounts you have 9 daytrades, few time ago I traded with 3 accounts with less than $5K each.