Hi all,
I am new to the platform, apologies if I am missing something obvious.
I am trading using the dashboard and some alerts from tradingview via webhooks; I only go Long and do not use Margin. I also avoid daytrading, more of a “swinger”. A couple of weeks one of my transactions didn’t get executed becuase of " risk of daytrading"; I have read probably everything available online on the topic since then, and I was indeed perfectly fine with it (was actually glad Alpaca has this extra security system preventing you from incurring in PDT issues, unless you really want to). I planned on waiting a few days to liquidate the asset, thinking I would be OK (given the 5 day period, etc.). However, even thought the day trading risk event was on February 13th, I just tried to sell the asset today (Feb 21st) and got the same message (basically “you are trying to liquidate this asset, are you sure you want to proceed? you could incur in PDT, etc…”). It’s been two weeks, and I haven’t tried to sell or buy anything within a day since then, especially this particular asset. Apart from the issue of not being able to liquidate the asset (which is losing -20%, but that’s the least of the problems), I seem to be missing something. Here is a list of questions that would really help me understand what’s going on:
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isn’t Daytrading related to buying/selling the SAME stock within a single trading day?
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Related to that, since I haven’t tried to sell that asset since February 13th, why am I still not able to sell it?
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I read here on the forum about buying power for daytrading which is different from regular buying power, and other things I was not aware of; very helpful, but I am not sure they apply to me since, again, I am not daytrading, not using margin, not shorting, …etc.
Any help would be really appreciated. Thank you!
Best,
Esa
@Esantarn The message you are getting is just for information only and can be ignored. If your account is under $25,000 in equity and you try to submit too many day trade orders the orders will be rejected.
You asked
“isn’t Daytrading related to buying/selling the SAME stock within a single trading day”. Correct. One can buy and sell as much as one wants as long as they are different symbols. Only buying then selling, or selling short then buying, the same stock in the same day is considered a day trade.
“Related to that, since I haven’t tried to sell that asset since February 13th, why am I still not able to sell it?” As mentioned, the message may just be for information. You shouldn’t be restricted from selling if you didn’t buy the same day. One thing to note however. The Alpaca systems will also block “potential day trades”. For example, if one has an existing limit order to buy XYZ then orders to sell XYZ will be rejected (if one already has 3 day trades) because the limit order could fill then your buy order could fill the same day and create a day trade.
“I read here on the forum about buying power for daytrading which is different from regular buying power, and other things I was not aware of; very helpful, but I am not sure they apply to me since, again, I am not daytrading, not using margin, not shorting, …etc.” Correct again. Unless an account is designated Pattern Day Trader (PDT), that is the account has day traded in the past, the Day Trade Buying Power (DTBP) will be $0 (ie the account has no extra buying power to day trade). You can simply look at account.buying_power for the max amount you have available trade.
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Dan,
this is really helpful, thank you.
Let me ensure I completely follow. A couple of info:
- I don’t have 25k in the account;
- Daytrade count = 1 as of 5’ minutes ago when I got the error message;
- have ample regular buying power, 0 daytrading power
Here is the message I get when I try to liquidate through the dashboard:
as you are saying, it is not preventing me from moving forward with liquidating the stocks, but I wanted to be sure before Submitting to then discover I have been flagged as PDT with all the restrictions that applies. In my Account summary, my daytrade count is = 1 as of 5 minutes ago when I got this message; I haven’t tried to sell this stock for the past two weeks as I mentioned, so based on what you are saying I should be able to go ahead and liquidate the asset without getting flagged. Correct?
Also, it’s not helpful that when you click “the Doc” in yellow the page gives an error (you might want to check that broken link).
Could this be an issue of Dashboard vs API trades? What I mean is that I’ve never gotten a message about Daytrading when submitting via the API, and I submit up to 10-12 orders a day (never same stock within a day obviously); I’ve been able to buy and sell every day for the past 20, but when I try to liquidate via the dashboard I get the error. Is it basically the case that I am simply not “seeing” the error/warning when submitting via the API and the orders just go in automatically?
Thank you again Dan.
Esa
@Esantarn Yes, that’s simply a warning and for information only. You can place up to 3 day trades over a 5 day rolling window without any issues. There isn’t a similar message in the API because there isn’t a similar “I’m about to place an order” method in the API. In the API you would simply submit an order and it would either succeed or fail (if rejected because of PDT protection).
Good luck.
Also, thanks about noting the broken docs link. I’ve passed that on to the UI team.
