Tradestation and PDT

A

azzie

Does anybody know, whether there is a way to avoid a Pattern DT label at Tradestation?

They treat all the accounts as margin accounts, so even if I day traded on cash-only basis I would need to have the daily $25K on my account.

Thanks
 
Originally posted by azzie
They treat all the accounts as margin accounts, so even if I day traded on cash-only basis I would need to have the daily $25K on my account.
More...
<Most brokers, Tradestation included, will not let you day trade absent the PDT rules (i.e. >3 in 5 days when under 25K) even if your account is a cash account. Datek used to let their cash accounts trade away, but I think they stopped doing that recently. Same with MyTrack. I do not personally know of any brokers who will let you escape PDT restrictions by using a cash account, but perhaps they are still out there...

--Derek
 
oops...I have no idea what happenned there...here's my whole reply again (hope it works this time)...

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Most brokers, Tradestation included, will not let you day trade absent the PDT rules (i.e. greater than 3 in 5 days when under 25K) even if your account is a cash account. Datek used to let their cash accounts trade away, but I think they stopped doing that recently. Same with MyTrack. I do not personally know of any brokers who will let you escape PDT restrictions by using a cash account, but perhaps they are still out there...

--Derek
 
AMTD used to let you daytrade all day in a cash account too, but this merger w/Datek got AMTD's nuts in a wringer with the SEC so that's history.
 
Originally posted by dereksas
oops...I have no idea what happenned there...here's my whole reply again (hope it works this time)...

---------------

Most brokers, Tradestation included, will not let you day trade absent the PDT rules (i.e. greater than 3 in 5 days when under 25K) even if your account is a cash account. Datek used to let their cash accounts trade away, but I think they stopped doing that recently. Same with MyTrack. I do not personally know of any brokers who will let you escape PDT restrictions by using a cash account, but perhaps they are still out there...

--Derek
More...

Same with IB. No daytrading in cash accounts!
 
This not cool at all.

Seems every newbie-trader like me has to start with 35K - 40K immediately.

but thanks for the replies :)
 
Even to an experienced trader, having a 25k hard deck sucks. You have to have a few grand above that for drawdowns so your real minimum's closer to 30k.

Then to show you how much they want to protect you, they allow 4:1 margin; 2x as much rope to hang yourself by.
 
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