Which brokers should you use to start day trading, whether you're trading, a small account large account going loan, biased or short, biased or trying to avoid the pdt restriction? I have the answers for you in this video. Contrary to what most people think, the deciding factor for which day trading broker you should be using should never be whether they are commission free. You should be choosing a broker that gives you the most optimized platform at a reasonable cost to trade, your own trading style and strategies, whether that's buying breakouts, shorting, parabolics, swing trading or options trading. Think of it.

This way, i don't want to be saving five dollars in commissions, but actually getting filled with 50 cents slippage and even just 100 shares that's losing 50 dollars of potential profits. At the same time, i don't want to be saving a couple of dollars per trade, but never have any stocks or shorts available. When i see an amazing low float, penny stock being pumped 400 percent and very extended on the day, broker commissions and fees adjust the cost of doing business if paying those fees means you end up with better execution, fills and speed and a lot more profit. Then, by all means, that's absolutely worth it in this video we'll be going over.

The brokers, i think, are the best for day trading in these specific areas, i'll leave all the time, stamps and discount links below if you want to check them out. As always, if you appreciate the research and time i put into videos like these, please remember to drop a like at the bottom of the video. Let's start with the most basic brokers for most beginner traders to get started going long. I personally started with learning loan strategies and that's how i built my small account with interactive brokers, ib, which is short for interactive brokers.

It's the first broker. I got when i started day trading six years ago, so interactive brokers is known for their discount commission fees. Basically, the cost of buying and selling us listed stocks is 0.005 dollars per share, with a minimum of a dollar u.s per share. So for newer traders with small accounts, this is very affordable and, from my past experience, interactive brokers fails and the speed is pretty decent.

As well, but keep in mind to trade on interactive brokers, you will need to purchase additional market data subscriptions for their platform trader workstation tws. If you are day trading mostly on the us nasdaq and nysc stocks and options like myself, this is what the subscriptions would look like and it adds up to about 20 to 30 dollars per month. So those packages include things like equities. Options quotes for nasdaq exchanges, level, 1 level, 2, etc.

But if you trade, those true sub dollar, penny stocks, you will need to purchase additional otc or pink sheets data, for i think about ten dollars or fifteen dollars a month in terms of the ability to short iab has generally good short locates for the large cap Stocks, but they would not have anything available on the hard to borrow stocks such as the small cap runners on day, one and sometimes on day two. So that's something to keep in mind of on top of that they also do not offer traders the function to reserve shares to short for later on. So you have to use a short locate right away, but the good news is for any of the stocks that they do have available. To short, they come at no extra cost.

Interactive brokers is available in the us, canada and most international countries. If you're in the us there's also the option of ib lite, which is their version of free commission trading, but i believe, if you are on the ib lite plan, you would only be able to trade a mobile or the web platform, not on the tws trader. Workstation desktop, if you open an account with interactive brokers, there's also the option of linking your broker account with dash trader pro, which is a much better and much more optimized trading platform. In my opinion, now, let's talk about fidelity active trader pro.

I have not used this broker myself, but i hear from many traders i trade with every single day that they have great execution fills and for a broker. That's gone commission free now, like everyone else, that's amazing. What a lot of traders love about fidelity is their customer service. Their support line is known for picking up the phone within one minute.

Wait and this broker has pretty good short availability for the mainstream large cap stocks such as the roku and tesla, and no additional borrowed cost, basically in terms of shorting they're around the same level as interactive brokers. But the downside to trading on fidelity active trader pro is their platform. The reviews from traders i know are generally the same. Their platform functions are really outdated and clunky.

So keep that in mind. If you decide to trade with them, fidelity is available for u.s, canada and many other international countries, as well, so make sure to check out their international website for more details. Now, for all the traders interested in trading, automation and coding, you might be interested in tradestation tradestation is another direct routing broker that offers good executions for traders. The shorting availability is on par with fidelity and interactive brokers, where most of the large cap stocks are available to short for free tradestation platform offers a very unique matrix feature, which is a more advanced but easy to follow level.

2 montage. This feature offers lightning fast order entries on all kinds of orders to trade with such as bracket orders, sell, stop orders and buy stock orders, and, like i mentioned earlier, tradestation platform also allows you to build your own automated trading strategies. So if you ever build a bot that'll make it rain lamborghinis make sure to call me now. Let's talk about the exciting topic of the best brokers for shorting, so when it comes to shorting these hard to borrow low flow stocks at an extremely affordable price, the winner has to be cobra.

Trading. Cobra trading is a premium direct access broker that offers the function of reserving hard to borrow stocks to short at a mostly reasonable price, and sometimes they even offer their clients free locates. On these stocks, all these small cap runners that ran 200 percent or 400 on the day that everyone wants to short, they were available at cobra trading, and sometimes you might want to short these stocks overnight, like i do and guess what, while a lot of other Brokers they charge three times or five times overnight fees. Cobra trading does not.

You can link your cobra account with fast trader pro as well. It's a platform that offers the best execution fields, whether you're going long or going short. If you are in the us, the accounts minimum to open is 30 000 and for the international clients the minimum will be fifty thousand dollars. But sorry at the moment they do not service the canadians, but i will have another option for you later on so hold on tight.

If you are interested in opening an account with cobra trading, i have a link for you to sign up below and if you mention humboldt trader at the time of account, opening you'll get 25 of your commissions, that's a pretty sweet deal. The next broker is also amazing for shorting hard to borrow stocks, and that is center point securities. They are a little bit more expensive in terms of short to locate fees than cobra trading and there's also the additional three times overnight fees. If you swing the stock short, however, they do offer amazing customer support service, direct access trading and connection with dash trader pro center point.

Securities is available for traders in the us, canada and many other international countries, with an account over 30 000. Now, for the traders, starting out with a smaller account less than thirty thousand dollars, i have more broker options for you after you smash the like button for the youtube algorithm. Okay, let's talk about the top choice for shorting. If you have less than thirty thousand dollars, and that is trade zero, this is an offshore broker in the bahamas.

Trade zero is known for having an extensive short locate on these hard to borrow penny stocks, just like cobra trading and center point, and you can open an account with them with 2 500 minimum. However, that's at an extra cost, of course, their locate fees on these hard to borrow stocks are usually a lot higher than other brokers. I know, and even though they claim to have free commission trades on limited orders - trade zero. They love to think traders for, like these small things, like wire fees, statement, fees and deposit fees and everything small like that.

They just kind of add up eventually. Another thing to keep in mind is the platform xero pro the executions and the fields are extremely clunky. Sometimes, and it freezes during times of volatility, so make sure to consider both the pros and the cons when trading with this broker. But trade 0 is definitely a great option for short sellers with a smaller account.

American traders can open an account with trade, zero america, but you still have the pdt rule restriction under 25, 000. Canadians and other international traders can open an account with trade zero international. Now, what if you want to avoid trading under pdt restriction? Pdt stands for pattern day, trader rule. Basically, it limits how many times you can trade, if your account is under 25 000 under the pdt restriction, the day trader can only place three day trades in a consecutive five day period.

Keep in mind. Pdt rule only applies to u.s traders using u.s based brokers such as all the ones that we talked about earlier, ib, tradestation, fidelity, think of swim, as well as the premium brokers like cobra and centerpoint. Actually, they don't even take clients under pdt, but if you are in the us and want to avoid this restriction, you can open a cash account with any of the brokers i mentioned earlier, or you could also open. The offshore trading account with cmg.

Cmag is one of the only few offshore brokers with a good reputation that i know many of my trader friends like to use. They are based out of trinidad and tobago and they take clients from the us and many international clients, but not canadians again. I'm sorry cmeg offers dash trader pro connections as well, but their commission fees and borrow fees are extremely high. Their short locate, availability is also not as good as straight zero or cobra trading either so make sure you read into the details in fine prints before opening an account with them.

If you want to learn more about other ways to get around, the pdt rule make sure to check out this video. Now, let's talk through really fast about a few other brokers that i know many traders like to use the street smart edge from shrub is one of the platform that i know to be very popular for options, traders and then there's also td, think or swim. I love thinkorswim charting platform with all the customization and flexible grid and the free market data, but truth be told. Ever since they started with free commission trading, the platform executions have been extremely laggy, and sometimes the market data would even freeze altogether, which, to be fair, seems to be the problem for all these brokers that have gone commission free, such as e-trade, ib, lite and popular Free trading apps such as weeble and robinhood.

Again, i think these free commission trading platforms are great for beginner traders to get started with low upfront cost or to just practice free real-time paper trading. But if you really want to take trading seriously as a business down the road after maybe six months or a year, it's very much worth it to switch to a premium. Direct access broker, the speed, execution fields, the routing options and the ability to short hard to borrow stocks are worth the extra couple dollars of commissions. That's just the cost of doing business.

Hopefully, you'll find some of the brokers. I just talked about fit your trading style i'll, provide more details and links to all these brokers down below. If you want to check them out, please remember to drop a like if you enjoy the video and the research. Thank you guys so much for watching.

As always, i'm the humble trader and i'll see you guys next week, hey guys thanks for watching. I hope you enjoy the video and the bad jokes. If you want to see more day, trading content make sure to subscribe and follow me on twitter and instagram for more. If you'd like to trade with me daily and get my free weekend, watch list and trading journal make sure to check out the links below for more resources.

Stay, green, stay, positive and i'll. See you guys next time.