The minimum amount it takes to begin day trading depends on where your broker is located. If your broker is based in the U.S., the Pattern Day Trader (PDT) rule requires a trader to have a minimum of USD 25,000 in their account in order to effectively day trade. Most large brokers, such as Interactive Brokers, will require this minimum amount in order for you to day trade. If you choose a U.S. broker, then we recommend that you keep a minimum of USD 30,000 in your account to allow for any losses sustained while you are in the learning process.

You may want to consider opening an offshore brokerage account with a firm such as Capital Markets Elite Group Limited (CMEG). Since the account will be held offshore, you will not be required to maintain the USD 25,000 minimum required by U.S. law. You can therefore open an account with a much smaller balance. If you decide to go this route, we recommend a balance of USD 5,000 to 10,000 so that more stocks will be available for you to trade. The smaller your account size, the fewer companies you will be able to trade the shares of and the fewer shares you will be able to take in each trade. More information on CMEG can be found here: https://forums.bearbulltraders.com/topic/122-new-broker-announcement-cme-group/

Please review our Trading Tools page which discusses various brokers and their requirements. Considerable commentary about brokers can also be found here: https://bearbulltraders.com/brokers/ In addition, we encourage you to review the posts in our forums about brokers: https://forums.bearbulltraders.com/forum/1-day-trading-brokers/