Alpaca offers 3 types of accounts:
Cash 1:1
Overnight - margin 2:1
Intraday - margin 4:1
1) Cash account
trading with your own money, no leverage, no borrowing
cannot be traded short
Buying power = cash in the account
Cash 1:1 |
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Example | Equity | Buying power | Used equity | Used margin | Remaining Cash |
75% of account | 100000 | 100000 | 75000 | 0 | 25000 |
150% of account | 100000 | 100000 | ❌ ERROR (limit 100 %) | 0 | 100000 |
2) Overnight account
possible to hold double the position of cash even overnight
minimum deposit = $2000
possible to trade short
Buying power = 2 x cash
Overnight 2:1 |
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Example | Equity | Buying power | Used equity | Used margin | Remaining Cash |
75% of account | 100000 | 200000 | 75000 | 0 | 25000 |
150% of account | 100000 | 200000 | 100000 | 50000 | -50000 |
3) Intraday account
during the trading day it is possible to hold a position up to 4 times larger than the equity
minimum deposit = 25000 USD (Pattern Day Trader rule)
Buying power = 4 x cash
Intraday 4:1 |
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Example | Equity | Buying power | Used equity | Used margin | Remaining Cash |
75% of account | 100000 | 400000 | 75000 | 0 | 25000 |
150% of account | 100000 | 400000 | 100000 | 50000 | -50000 |
Notice:
For example, if you want to trade 75% of your account and use 2:1 leverage to trade a double position, you need to enter a double risk percentage (i.e. 150%) in AlgoCloud's strategy settings. Alpaca then blocks 100% cash and 50% margin.
Example with 125% - log detail in AlgoCloud
Account Detail in Alpaca
if the account is not leveraged and you try to trade more than 100%, the trade will not be executed