The "only" problem with being proprietary trader seems to be lack of the insurance.
What I meant in my first post at this thread was that firms like IB or Datek could get some financial institution to lend part of the money to the trader who can not meet the 25K requirement. The broker would guarantee to the bank that the trader will only be able to use his own money for trading. Example ( trader puts 10K into his account, bank provides 15K at 10% interest.) Those 15K just sit there in order to satisfy the SEC rule and trader can only trade with his 10K which would have 4:1 margin. His total money available for trading would be 40K instead of 100K if all of the startup money was his.
What I meant in my first post at this thread was that firms like IB or Datek could get some financial institution to lend part of the money to the trader who can not meet the 25K requirement. The broker would guarantee to the bank that the trader will only be able to use his own money for trading. Example ( trader puts 10K into his account, bank provides 15K at 10% interest.) Those 15K just sit there in order to satisfy the SEC rule and trader can only trade with his 10K which would have 4:1 margin. His total money available for trading would be 40K instead of 100K if all of the startup money was his.