On June 4th the PDT rule is removed and Alpaca changes to the new real time risk model. All accounts on Alpaca is margin accounts so what’s exactly stopping me from having $500 in my account and buying long calls or long puts as long as I have the cash to cover them and don’t use leverage?
If I buy a SPY contract for $110 then I’m only in risk of losing the premium paid and I had the cash to cover it.
The system auto closes ITM positions if I don’t have the cash to exercise them near expiry, and unless that’s going to change (which I can’t imagine it would) then there’s no risk in regards to intraday margin requirements.
So what is the effectively minimum amount required? Long positions only, no leverage, only margin accounts - sounds like real time cash accounts to me?