Trading FAQ
The pattern day trader rule exists inside FINRA's rulebook, and FINRA's jurisdiction covers broker-dealers trading securities. Futures contracts are not securities under U.S. law — they're regulated separately, under the Commodity Exchange Act, by the CFTC, with the NFA acting as the industry's self-regulatory body. A futures commission merchant (FCM) that holds a trader's futures account answers to CFTC and NFA rules, not FINRA's. Since PDT was never written into CFTC or NFA rules, there was no equivalent restriction on futures day trading before June 2026, and there still isn't one after the securities-side rule changed.
Futures don't use a day-count restriction. Instead, every futures position is backed by margin set by the exchange (commonly using CME's SPAN risk-based methodology), with brokers layering their own day-trade margin requirements on top of the exchange floor. Margin in futures works as a performance bond — collateral posted to control a contract — rather than money borrowed the way stock margin works, and day-trade margin requirements are typically far smaller than a contract's full overnight margin. That's the mechanism that manages risk in futures accounts: how much margin is required per contract, not how many trades were placed that week.
| Securities (Stocks, ETFs, Options) | Futures | |
|---|---|---|
| Regulator | SEC / FINRA | CFTC / NFA |
| Day-trading restriction | Intraday Margin Level framework (replaced the $25,000 PDT rule, effective June 4, 2026) | None — no day-count or equity-threshold restriction of any kind |
| What actually limits trading | Broker-set intraday buying power tied to a >$2,000 equity floor | Exchange-set margin per contract, plus broker day-trade margin on top |
| Typical minimum to start | >$2,000 under the new framework | Often $500–$2,500 depending on the broker and contract, no regulatory floor tied to trade count |
None of this means futures trading is unrestricted or lower-risk. Leverage in futures is typically much higher than in a securities account, since day-trade margin can be a small fraction of a contract's full value — which cuts both ways, amplifying gains and losses identically. A futures account is also still subject to its broker's own maintenance margin calls and can be auto-liquidated if equity falls below the required level, similar in spirit to a securities margin call even though the specific rules differ.
No. Futures-only funded-account firms (Topstep, Apex Trader Funding, Take Profit Trader, and similar) set their own daily loss limits, drawdown rules, and contract-size caps entirely independent of PDT or its replacement, since those firms' underlying accounts are futures accounts regulated the same CFTC/NFA way. A funded futures account's daily loss limit is a firm-specific risk rule, not a securities day-trading regulation, and it applies regardless of what happens to the PDT framework on the securities side.