Day Trading: How exactly does it work?

So I'm trying to understand exactly how the regulations work. What I understand so far is that if you do a buy-and-sell trade more than 4 times in a week, you can be flagged as a pattern day trader. After you are flagged, it says you need to have $25,000 in equity or face restrictions.

Here's where my understanding gets fuzzy: SEC seems to say its buying or selling the same stock? im not sure.

• if I buy stock A, B, C, D, and E and sell all of those stocks off in a day, will I be flagged as a pattern day trader?

• what about if I buy A,B,C,D,E then go and sell off F,G,H,i,J,K?

this in particularly is tripping me up:

• The purchasing and selling or the selling and purchasing of the same security on the same day in a margin account.

Lets say I'm trading on ameritrade with $10k in an FDIC-insured account. I'm not borrowing money from ameritrade to do any of my trades (margin trading). if I make multiple trades to be considered a day trader, what happens then? Am I exempt since I'm not on a margin account? Am I suddenly required to have a margin account to continue to day trade?

Submitted November 03, 2017 at 09:15AM by ase1590 http://ift.tt/2A38jSf