How Is Scott Trade?

[IIC]

Realistically though in a cash account...you're gonna run out of settled funds soon enough and get hit with a free ride or two. I mean if you're "day trading" that is...as in several trades a day. Don't you think?

I'm not suggesting that it is a very good idea to have something like $10,000 in a non-margin cash account and try to make 10 day trades of about $1,000 each in a 5 day period...But one can legally do it.

However, if one has say $100,000 in an IRA which is non-margin they may want to daytrade more than 3x in a 5 day period as long as they use settled funds.

However, being a pattern day trader does open up a different world of opportunities...But unfortunately most lose their shirt at it....It seems easy...but it is not.

If I was f/t I would try to only trade scalp types...every time I saw a good opportunity...But that takes a lot of patience and discipline cause one big loser can take 10+ winners to make up for it.

Best, Doug

[investor30]

I use Scottrade. They are great all the way around in my opinion. $7 is online trades, if you call the broker to trade it's like $17 if you do it touchtone phone and $27 for broker assisted, so pretty much any trade you'll ever do is $7. No hidden fees and they do have great stock data including candlestick charts. The charting features are as good if not better than yahoo's interactive charts. You need $2000 minimum to have a margin account, which is key if you're going to be trading frequently, otherwise you have to wait 3 days for settlement dates on cash accounts.

Was planning on opening an account on ScottTrade, what does this mean about waiting 3 days for settlement dates on cash accounts?

[IIC]

Was planning on opening an account on ScottTrade, what does this mean about waiting 3 days for settlement dates on cash accounts?

Does not matter what broker you use now on settlement dates...Doug