Day-Trading Restrictions

If you have been thwarted by the “pattern day trader” rule while trading stocks and ETFs, you might be interested to know that futures trading has no such restrictions.

How can that be? Answer: Stock trading is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and they believe that it is important to restrict you from engaging in what they consider to be risky trading. But, the SEC has no authority over the futures market, which is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) which obviously has a more laissez-faire attitude.

While trading futures, you can hit the “buy” and “sell” buttons all day long, hundreds of times if you like, and nobody will ever say one word to you (assuming that you have sufficient margin).

However, before you start trading futures, be sure to read my book: The General Theory of Day-Trading.