Sorry, Freetrade is till bugging me and I need some feedback from the more experienced traders on this board.
Here is the last e-mail I got:
****************
Dear Valued Freetrade Client:
The reason that there is no figure reflected next to cash balance is because you are currently carrying a margin debit. You can not have a cash balance and a margin debit at the same time. The funds that you generated from your sells this morning went towards reducing your margin debit balance. Which in effect will increase the Available Funds balance and the regular buying power balance.
You can not use regular buying power for day trading purposes and Available funds is not cash if you are carrying a margin debit.
Another factor in this case is that SEPR is held at 40% instead of 30%, which means it is not a fully marginable stock.
The Available Funds and the Buying Power would have been adequate if the entire position would have been held overnight. Once you traded those 200 shares, you created a Day Trading Buying Power Call.
Sincerely,
Client Services
Freetrade by Ameritrade
*************************
Now Daytek/Ameritrade says you CAN use regular margin for daytrading purposes, and I spoke to Etrade customer service and they say the same.
If you can't use regular margin for daytrading, you could be trapped into a bad trade by this requirement and they are reduced to judging your motives when you opened the trade.
