I have made several trades in my Roth IRA in the last few days. Is the buying and selling of the same stock in the same day considered one or two trades? I know it takes 4 trades in 5 consecitive business days to be marked a "pattern day trader". So what would really happen if my IRA was "marked", and since IRA's arn't eligible to be margin accounts, does it even matter? What are the consequences?
I'm not sure if you can get "marked" in an IRA account. Because it's a "cash" account, not margin, it would be harder to do enough day trading to meet the requirements. In my IRA account, it seems that if I do a day trade (or even an overnight trade), I'm not able to reinvest the cash from the sale until the day that the purchase settles (i.e. the third business day after the purchase).
For margin accounts, if you're marked as a pattern day trader, additional rules kick in. One example is a $25,000 minimum equity requirement, special margin limits, and additional ways you can get a margin call.
I don't know anything about a rule that blocks you from trading for a week, though if you violate some of the rules, you account can become treated as a cash account for 90 days.
Check this website (and the one it links to) for more details: http://www.patterndaytraderrule.com/
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