 Hello there everyone and welcome. This is Melissa Arma with a Stock Squush and I thought I would do a short lecture here today because I get this question a lot. How much money do you need to day trade and what is buying power? Well, if you want to day trade, you have to open up an account at a broker. I'm not a broker, there's thousands of brokers out there. You can call anyone in the world and ask them, but in general, people always say to me, how much money do I need? And I think people tend to think that they need more money than they actually need. So I'm gonna break down here a trade and give you an example so that you understand exactly what day trading is because day trading means you're getting in and out between 9.30 and 4 p.m. Eastern time. So you can get something called buying power from a broker. It's basically you're trading on margin, but you're flat before four o'clock. That's the idea, that's what we do with day trades. So this is me, if you have any questions, you can feel free to call me at 929-3200 gap. And you can email me at melissa at thestockswish.com if you'd like more information. What is buying power? Just so you know, here's a definition from Investopedia.com. Buying power, also referred to as an excess equity, is the money an investor has available to buy securities when considering the term in a trading context. Buying power is the money an investor has available to buy securities and equals the total cash held in the brokerage account plus all available margin. Okay, that's a little complex, but I'm gonna break it down for you in ways that you can understand. Making money is possible for regular people. So you don't have to have $100,000 cash in the bank in order to day trade. And a lot of people think that in order to trade the market, you need a lot of money. I thought that too. When I first started out in 2008, I thought you had to have millions of dollars to trade. I thought you had to work down on Wall Street. I thought all of these things. I thought you had to be licensed. You don't, okay? You can actually open up an account of a broker yourself without a license, without a series seven, without having to take a test. And you can be an active trader, an active day trader. You can take swing trades, you can take day trades, you can take options trades. We're gonna talk about two of those here today. But it's possible that for regular people to trade the market, that's one of the reasons the market has exploded in the last 20 years. Ever since electronic trading and people started getting out there and really getting involved, involved in participating in the market, the market has had so much volatility and lots of volume and momentum and that helps. You make money. Of course, you have to know what to do. Okay, that's what I teach people in my class I'm an educational firm, but I want people to understand that they still have to open up an account of a broker, but it's possible for regular people. You don't have to have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to do it. You also don't have to do it full time, meaning nine to five, five days a week, okay? It's only in the morning that I focus on trades in the gaps. Now, here was one, this was last week in eBay. eBay had a gap on earnings on the 19th, okay? The stock gap down it fell, so this was a short. And you know, you get BP for longs and shorts. And again, you have to ask the broker, but I'm just gonna show you one example here in this trade. This is a day trade, you're in and out, in and out. That's it, okay? You're taking it and getting out. You're doing all of this between nine, 30 and four. And if you do, okay, you will get margin from the broker above and beyond your cash, okay? So this was an advanced trader size, just so you know, we're gonna go over beginner two. But how much BP was required? For this trade, entry was 35.21. Share quantity, 6,000. Again, that's a lot, okay? That's a lot, that's not a beginner size. Exit was what, 34.36. So if you short something and it drops in price, guess what, you're gonna make money. So the profit in this was almost a dollar moved down. So it was 5,100 bucks. BP required was what, 211,260. And you know, this is a good size. We're gonna go over a smaller one, but I just wanna show you. You did not need 211,260 dollars to take this trade, okay? You did not. What would you have needed, okay? You would have needed 52,815 if you had a retail account because retail accounts given a margin of four to one. So 52,815 cash times four is what this, you could have taken the position. If you had a prop account, they give 10 to one. Some places give a little bit more, but most is 10 to one. So you would have taken 211,260 divided by 10. You would have needed 211,126 cash, cash, cash, cash. So the margin is given by the broker, okay? So you could take the position, but you must be flat and out of the trade by four because you're not gonna get this margin after four o'clock, after hours, overnight, okay? But that's what makes it possible. The type of account is up to you where you go. And again, the broker, the broker sets all this up for you wherever you decide to trade. And what if you did a smaller size? Just to show you, 600 shares, you would have needed 211,126 in buying power. That's fine, very good. You would have made what, 510 bucks? $500 a day, $500 a trade, that's great. That's fantastic, okay? Nice move, decent size here, decent size price stop. In a retail account, you would have needed how much of this of your buying power would have taken up, 5,281, and in a prop account, 211,12. So just so you're seeing here, you did not need hundreds of thousands of dollars to trade, but you do have to have money in account to get the margin or the BP from the broker. Same trade here. Now, when we're talking about doing options, you could do an option, what was it? I called an option in eBay, which was the put. You would have bought a put, stop dropped. You could have got out at 34, went a little bit further, actually went for a couple of days. If you do this, you don't need to have to worry about margin or buying power for options, okay? Because the only cost it has to you is what? The cost of the position, how many contracts do you take? Option entry in this, 20 cents. If you took 80 contracts, what would you have risk? $1,600, sell price 60 cents, profit would have been 3,200 bucks. All you would have needed was $1,600 to take the trade and you would have made $3,200. So that's a really, really, really nice trade, okay? So the difference between doing options and equity trades is you don't have to worry about margin or buying power. But this trade took a couple of days. It was three days down. It wasn't in and out in a few minutes. You took it on a Thursday, you got out of it Monday, okay? So it's your time that you have, the money that you have, you have to make the decision what you feel more comfortable with, particularly, I mean, for myself, both are fine, but I really do like the quick ones like in the day trades, okay? So how much money you need depends on if you're doing options or day trading equities. You can day trade options too, by the way, all right? And it's really up to you which kind of broker you wanna go to, retailer prop. I definitely would check into it, totally up to you, but you do not need hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to day trade. And I think it's very, very important that people understand that. Does anyone not understand that? If you don't understand that, if anyone out there does not get it, please reach out to me. Please email me if you have questions. These things are important before you begin to trade or before you open up an account. You really do need to understand these things. So one of the things that makes the stocks wish unique as a company I own is you'll receive value, a lot of information for a good price, very, very detailed high level of information we receive in my Golden Gap class and in the room. Support, which is me obviously, answer your questions, taking your phone calls and results, which you get from the trade calls. Furthering education, okay, which is important too. And I also care about the people succeed. You'll get a clear direction, you'll find one system only, good system, live daily calls in the room and there's a lot of motivation behind the system itself and then day trading, which I provide in the room and I provide through the videos and I provide in the class and all of these things are important because everybody needs it. Everybody needs it in order to do this but I just want people to know that regular people can do this but you still have to have a structure. You have to have a structure and the structure is the Golden Gap course. It's a 26 points, it's a system and also the structure is the time of the day in and out. If you do options and wanna hold them overnight, that's fine but you still gotta watch your trades. The whole idea if you wanna do this no matter what your purpose is, what, how much money you wanna make, it has to be something that you can afford and it is something that can lead to financial freedom for you because you don't have to report to a boss when you work for yourself in the market and that is a very, very nice thing. So my class is called the Golden Gap course. It's a two day class July 28th and 29th. If you're interested in more information email me at melissa at thestockswish.com. Class tuition is $54.99. If you wanna sign up for the options letter separate, that's a separate letter. You get all the trades if you just wanna do the options. There's no prerequisites for the letter. The letter is $29.99 for the entire year. You do not have to do the class to sign up for the options letter. If you wanna be in the training room to get the day trainings, you have to do the class in order to be eligible to sign up for the room, okay? Hopefully this helped people and explained a lot. Give me a call back if you have any questions. 929-3200 Gap. Have a great day.