Interactive Brokers has been around a lot longer and will let you make any number of small trades for $1 each.
There is an old adage that you shouldn't confuse genius with a bull market. Have you traded successfully through a downturn and learned when to go short or flat? If you have, and you don't choke with real money on the line, you are a rare breed.
If you have $5,000 you've got to limit your number of positions. If your goal is $50 per trade, you'd need 1% return on your whole $5,000 stake on every trade. That's pretty ambitious for true daytrading, and if you have a drawdown to $2,500, you have an impossible 2% goal.
Another issue is that if you make a few day trades in a small account, the broker will cut you off because the SEC requires a larger minimum balance for "pattern day-traders". The balance doesn't have to be cash, it can be other stocks that you aren't trading much.
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