Day Trading Risk Disclosure
You should consider the following points before engaging in a day-trading strategy. For purposes of this notice, a “day trading strategy” means an overall trading strategy characterized by the regular transmission by a customer of intra-day orders to effect both purchase and sale transactions in the same asset.
1. Day trading can be extremely risky: Day trading generally is not appropriate for someone of limited resources and limited investment or trading experience and low-risk tolerance. You should be prepared to lose all of the funds that you use for day trading. In particular, you should not fund day trading activities with retirement savings, student loans, second mortgages, emergency funds, funds set aside for purposes such as education or home ownership, or funds required to meet your living expenses.
2. Claims of large profits: You should be wary of advertisements or other statements that emphasize the potential for large profits in day trading. Day trading can also lead to large and immediate financial losses. Day trading requires knowledge of securities and cryptocurrency markets, trading techniques, and strategies. In attempting to profit through day trading, you compete with professional, licensed traders employed by securities firms and algorithmic trading bots. Do not attempt to day trade unless you have appropriate experience.
3. Liquidating positions: Under certain market conditions, you may find it difficult or impossible to liquidate a position quickly at a reasonable price. This can occur, for example, when the market for a stock suddenly drops, or if trading is halted due to recent news events or unusual trading activity. The more volatile a stock is, the greater the likelihood that problems may be encountered in executing a transaction. In addition to normal market risks, you may experience losses due to system failures.
4. Commissions: Day trading can generate substantial commissions, even if the per trade cost is low. Day trading involves aggressive trading. In some markets, you will pay commissions on each trade. The total daily commissions that you pay on your trades will add to your losses or significantly reduce your earnings.
5. Margin and Short selling: Trading on margin may result in losses beyond your initial investment. When you day trade with funds borrowed from a firm or someone else, you can lose more than the funds you originally placed at risk. A decline in the value of the asset that are purchased may require you to provide additional funds to the firm to avoid the forced sale of those assets in your account. Short selling, as part of your day trading strategy, also may lead to extraordinary losses, because you may have to purchase a stock or other asset at a very high price in order to cover a short position.