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SEC Scraps $25,000 Day-Trading Minimum, Lifting Robinhood and Webull

A risk-based equity standard replaces the threshold to shift brokers toward real-time margin controls.

Overview

  • Robinhood shares extended a roughly 6% rally Wednesday after the SEC's Tuesday vote ending the $25,000 day-trading requirement, with Webull up by a similar amount.
  • The approval order removes the formal “pattern day trader” label that had applied to accounts making four or more day trades in five business days.
  • The new framework requires every margin account to keep enough equity to cover its current risk exposure, and it applies the same way to all investors.
  • Brokers now face upgrades to real-time risk and compliance systems as they prepare to enforce exposure-based checks instead of a fixed account balance.
  • In crypto, Bitcoin slipped about 0.5% and Ethereum fell roughly 2.6%, and Kraken's co-CEO said the exchange filed IPO paperwork late last year.