Day trading restrictions even though the account is over $25k, please let me know why this has been flagged.
What are you specifically experiencing? Is it an issue with your your day trade buying power or is it that you are only seeing a 2x account.multiplier?
I’m unable to close out a position after a few modifications to the limit and sell orders. The error is :
Failed to liquidate position in [STOCK_CODE]
trade denied due to pattern day trading protection
Alpaca enacts a few safeguards to keep one from being flagged as a Pattern Day Trader (PDT) and/or going over their daytrading buying power. Basically, if a trade is anticipated to put the user in a position of too many day trades or exceeding ones buying power, the trade will be rejected. There is a more detailed explanation in the docs.
Alpaca Trading platform monitors the number of day trades for the account for the past 5 business days and rejects a newly submitted orders on exit of a position if it could potentially result in the account being flagged for PDT. This protection triggers only when the previous day’s closing account equity is less than $25,000 at the time of order submission.
To liquidate the position, one would need to wait until the following trading day.
The PDT protections are always enforced. However, there are several options on how the buying power protections are enacted and those settings can be managed in “Accounts → Configuration” (here).
