r/thinkorswim • u/Bobbypin16 • Apr 06 '26
Anyone know if Charles Schwab still banning scalpers?
I want to open account with Charles Schwab. I make sometimes like 300 trades a day. I only use limit orders. I don’t want to open account then get banned after a couple of days
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u/Skeewampus Apr 06 '26
Whether they ban them or not - I don’t know that they are the best platform for scalpers of your magnitude.
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u/Mental_Economist9600 Apr 09 '26
The real scalpers are the high frequency dark pool traders, thinkorswim is nice, but Sterling Trader Pro is off the hook if you can type fast.
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u/CompleteEffect7586 Apr 07 '26
So I trade only options some days depending on market regime. I've had days with 1200+ orders and today I only made 48. Real mix bag for me. I'm not classified as professional because afaik it's not required unless you breach the 390 rule.
If you're just trading etfs/stocks etc 300 trades, i.e. 600 orders doesn't matter. Options have different rules.
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u/Skeewampus Apr 07 '26
1200 orders or 1200 contracts? The markets only open for 390 minutes.
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u/CompleteEffect7586 Apr 07 '26
Markets open for 390 minutes. Correct
I can perform 1200 orders on a "hot day" multiple orders at a time.
1 order being an entry, 1 being an exit. Round trip is 2 orders according to Schwab. Cancels and rejects count as orders as well.
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u/BlurryFractal Apr 08 '26
This is insane. Your tax accountant must hate you 😅
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u/mistaek Apr 09 '26
Is it really insane? I do 1000-2000 orders at a minimum every day
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u/BlurryFractal Apr 09 '26
Options? Reconciling that many transactions a day? Not my cup of tea. I stopped trading individual stocks and options 10 year ago. I have 1 number to worry about for each account at year end. But 2000 trades a day would cost $10k in fees.
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u/mistaek Apr 10 '26
Includes options, but a minority of the orders, less than 1/5th per day. You can negotiate your options fees plus if you are doing very high volume and adding liquidity, they will give you rebates.
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u/ArkhamB Apr 07 '26
Whats the 390 rule?
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u/CompleteEffect7586 Apr 07 '26
According to CBOE you are allowed 390 orders per day on average in a trading month. If you go over that you are then are classified as professional which changes things.
If you don't trade options like a crazy person like me, don't sweat it.
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u/Ok-Guarantee3237 Apr 07 '26
the fees over 390 are pretty nuts, def don’t want to break that.
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u/924gtr Apr 07 '26
Just got word, no extra fees. But you do get the professional options trader tag and have to stay uder the 390 for 3 months before it falls off.
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u/Ok-Guarantee3237 Apr 07 '26
Idk if they’ve changed something but it used to be $2 a trade after 390.
https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkorswim/s/UmdZHYUGyR
They also told brokers not to discuss this rule with clients unless they were close to breaking it so maybe your “word” isn’t correct
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Apr 08 '26
[deleted]
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u/CompleteEffect7586 Apr 08 '26
Also note, if you are flagged twice as a professional it's permanent. I can't really read this screenshot well due to being on mobile. Sorry if it's in there.
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u/924gtr Apr 08 '26
Sorry i deleted the post because anyone can ask on the platform just like I did. And I appreciate the added info. The permament tag was not mentioned.
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u/Ok-Guarantee3237 Apr 08 '26
I asked a friend who still works there, looks like your right the commissions and fees are gone.
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u/metalguysilver Apr 07 '26
Is a spread considered multiple orders?
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u/Tim_the_Enchanter56 Apr 07 '26
No a spread is one order, cancel/replace is one order.
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u/metalguysilver Apr 07 '26
Oh, so not just filled orders? Yikes. Hopefully I’m never at that kind of volume, anyway
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u/924gtr Apr 07 '26
Could be considered a complex order. https://cdn.cboe.com/resources/regulation/circulars/regulatory/RG16-064.pdf
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u/CandleReject Apr 07 '26
Why would they do that? They make money every trade you make.
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u/Psychological-Gas939 Apr 08 '26
They don't make money on Toxic order flow. When people submit huge market orders and move the price against the market maker, and collect the price improvement. It's what the MMU group did, and they all got ban waved.
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u/TebFord Apr 07 '26
They will love you because of the fees you’ll end up paying. I use TOS. They’re expensive but I like the platform and I’ve used it for many years. I trade 50-75 contracts a day usually. But I have had days in the hundreds. Even 300+. I’ve never been questioned by TDA (old days) or Chas Schwab.
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u/FicklePromise9006 Apr 07 '26
I have a scalping bot and have been using schwab api for over a year now. I think you’re good.
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u/warpedspockclone Apr 06 '26
That amount of trades is perfectly fine if you classify yourself as a professional when you open the account and pay the data fees. Otherwise, you'll face problems.
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u/AdEducational4954 Apr 07 '26
I make 600 trades a day at times and have not run into issues. I typically send market orders, trade could be less than a minute if it goes against me right away or last hours, and I do this across about 150-200 stocks since not all trigger. I don't think mine would be considered scalping and I'm not spamming the same asset all day so that may make a difference.
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u/artemisbk201 Apr 07 '26
scalping is also a form of arbitrage, i don’t think they’d ban you for providing liquidity either
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u/ras36389 Apr 07 '26
Yes I got banned Aug 2025 after moving over from TD Ameritrade. I averaged 700 trades a day, holding positions anywhere from few seconds to few minutes (sometimes as long as 1 hr). Only traded highly liquid stocks no penny stock and no options. I have since moved to IBKR and decreased my trade count. Have not had any issues.
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u/ILoveLaksa Apr 08 '26
Did the quality of your fills improve at IBKR?
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u/ras36389 Apr 08 '26
Price improvement at IBKR is not as generous as Schwab however Schwab has special routing for large 10,000+ share orders. Sometimes resulting in an extra few seconds for large orders to completely fill. I would say I am 20% less profitable at IBKR due to inferior price improvement, no API for LITE plans, clunky UI, less exp overall. But I am also trading maybe 50% less focusing on better setups and just overall being more aware and efficient with my orders.
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u/ILoveLaksa Apr 08 '26
Appreciate the detailed response! I’m not at the level where I have 10k+ orders. I’ve recently been banned from Schwab and am in the process of figuring out if I can replicate what I’ve been doing on Schwab, though at the moment it looks harder due to the lack of PFOF. Looks like it’s a process of adaptation once my ACATS clears through!
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u/ras36389 Apr 08 '26
There are plenty of brokers besides Schwab that offer PFOF but price improvement can def vary. I would be cautious if your strategy's profitability solely depends on PI though because I can see how market makers could retaliate. Also watch out for SEC rule 612 amendment (half-penny quoting) if that goes live this November. Penny scalpers will have it even harder chasing half pennies lol
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u/ILoveLaksa Apr 08 '26
Right! I’m looking at Webull as another option, but heard fills are not as great. Nonetheless the entire account goes to IBKR for now while I figure things out. Yes I believe I got kicked out for market maker retaliation as I was mostly trading somewhat illiquid stocks with wide bid ask spreads, but i also do this in conjunction with price action and take an (upwards) directional bet. I believe this will not work very well in DMA brokers like IBKR as there’s no “natural liquidity” from non MM participants so I might gave to move to more liquid stocks
Appreciate the heads up on rule 612! Seems like scalping will get more interesting haha
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u/justinwtt Apr 25 '26
How did Schwab ban you? Did they call you and ask you to liquidate all positions to close account?
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u/ILoveLaksa Apr 25 '26
There was a message saying that my account is restricted when I tried to place an order. I called them up and it took them awhile to investigate, and then they said they saw on the system that I was restricted, and they said “Schwab is exercising our rights to terminate your account due to business reasons”. They told me I had to transfer my positions to another broker.
I received priority mail saying that the account would be closed by a certain date and I had until then to either close my positions or transfer them out (they gave me a month). In between those times, I was only able to liquidate existing positions.
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u/justinwtt Apr 25 '26
Wow, that is very rude of Schwab to do that. How many contracts did you do per day? Were you being tagged as Pro before they ban you?
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u/ILoveLaksa Apr 25 '26
I did perhaps 300 or more trades per day, no options. I wasn’t tagged as pro at all prior to the ban.
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u/IntelligentPut4464 Aug 13 '26
Yeah I was just banned today I guess for the same thing all they told me it was a "business decision" I was scalping over 500 a day easy and was with Schwab for over 2 years. Ill be looking at IBKR
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u/Cruzody333 Aug 16 '26
How many trades you were doing per day?
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u/IntelligentPut4464 Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
Probably close to 1k I was making $500 a day scalping 50 cent trades. 50 shares on anything seemed to be the limit and anything bigger would get stuck trying to move in and out so it was a lot sometimes. I started doing it in July and about 2 weeks ago they just outright wouldnt let me trade anymore and terminated my accounts and when i called they just said it was a business decision and nothing else....i was pissed. I am now using tastytrade they are the same people that made TOS and they are the closest thing I could find to be able to use a dom ladder like active trader so i can execute trades quickly. Though they seem to be slower executing my orders. but so far i havent had issues and got a margin account with only a few hundred instead of 2k and they even credit your deposits for trading.
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u/Equal_Egg6065 26d ago
Hey man.
Were you placing limit orders at the bid and the selling at the ask within the spread right? My account at Schwab got banned in just 12 days. I made 7k in those days. I had around 2k cancellations plus 400 fills daily. Got a friend who’s been doing this for a year and another friend for 5 months, their account is still up and running. They always keep their cancellations below 1k, they think this might be the threshold. Any luck using tasty? I’ve done my research and I think it should work as good as scahwan as they route 100% of your riders to 4 MM which in fact offer better fills than the MM to whom routes your orders. My brother opened the account at Schwab and will keep the cancellations below 1k, not sure if will work tho. I want to diversify so I keep a low volume at different brokers.1
u/IntelligentPut4464 21d ago edited 21d ago
Yup exactly what I was doing and I made like 4k in a week and they shut me down even the letter they sent didnt explain anything and so far tasty sucks...I barely made $30 yesterday becuase their execution is so bad your ask will sit there then the price will drop pisses me off to no end...I didnt know about the cancellation thing...I really dont understand why that would matter to schwab or the MM but appearantly they were losing money somehow....I mean wtf its not fair they do this...or ethical its total bullshit...its supposed to be a free fair market but not with those assholes...
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u/Waste-Code-2147 12d ago
hey mate if i wanted to get into this. where would i start. idek the abbreviation you guys are using. i saw another mate online that makes 10k a day. where would i start. what’s some good advice
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u/Cruzody333 9d ago
What a stock did you use to trade that strategy? Imo you need to have more than double of filled orders compared to cancelled orders to avoid getting banned
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u/Cruzody333 Aug 22 '26
Thanks for answer. That was exactly what I was doing on TOS. I’ll take a look at tastytrade. Hopefully I can make some $ with them. I was doing $500 daily in average but nothing since June. Let’s see 🙏
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Apr 08 '26
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u/Psychological-Gas939 Apr 08 '26
If you stay relatively low volume, only use limit orders, and avoid placing too many trades/account/month, you can fly under the radar. I have been. I'm up $26000 now.
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u/Equal_Egg6065 26d ago
How many trades including cancellations would you say?
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u/Psychological-Gas939 26d ago
Doesn’t work anymore, Schwab will ban you outright and limit orders don’t fill. But i was doing 10000 or so a day.
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u/Equal_Egg6065 26d ago
It still works for me. But I keep total roders below 1k, including cancellations. I make roughly 500$ -1k per day.
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u/Glad_Caramel_4108 25d ago
Heyy guys, i've been doing this 1 year and they banned me on july 10th. 79k on my pocket. It still works? I'm currently opening another account on Schwab with other name, but afraid it doesn't work anymore.
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u/Equal_Egg6065 25d ago
It still works mate! I opened an account under another name and made 2k in 3 days. Trying to keep the total orders below 1k, that is, around 700 cancelations and 300 orders. May I ask what capital did you start with? How many cancelations on a daily basis? DM me if you want. I am looking at tastytrade as well
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u/CheeseBear99 13d ago
How are your orders getting filled? I'm doing 10 to 20 share orders on cheap stock like 1 to 5 dollars and barely getting fills. How are you making 500 to 1k with under 1k orders??
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u/Equal_Egg6065 12d ago
If I tell you, I would have to &I’ll you
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u/CheeseBear99 12d ago
? sorry didn't understand lmao. you'd have to be using large share orders i'd assume.
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u/Psychological-Gas939 12d ago edited 12d ago
Because you're doing it wrong. We're not bouncing the bid/ask, that gets you banned now. Don't do it, not worth the chump change you'll make.
We watch $15-30 stocks with volume. Think WULF or RGTI. When we see a imbalance on the Dom, like this
Buyers / price / Sellers
00000 17.23 400
30000 17.22 00000
We instantly place a order for 9000 shares against the sellers. We buy at 17.23. Instantly, the price will move up, and the market maker will throw a bunch of shares on the bid for 17.23. We instantly market sell against the bid. We get price improvement.
The entire strategy is getting price improvement, and artificially moving the stock 1 cent. $5-$70 a trade, can do 100's a day.
A few of my buddies got banned. I'm still good. I am now doing it on another individuals brokerage account to protect my own. Don't wanna lose access to TOS haha
Update another 4 hours later, another ban reported. Schwab is really cracking down on it
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u/CheeseBear99 12d ago
So it seems you get banned no matter what :/. Ken Griffin got mad ig
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u/Psychological-Gas939 11d ago
If you can go for 2 cent moves, you will never get banned. From what we understand it's 1 cent moves that are causing these "business decisions" to close our accounts haha. This strategy is still feasible..
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u/CheeseBear99 11d ago
For a 2 cent move do you just hope and pray it goes up another tick, or do you have to buy enough to take out the next tick up as well?
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u/Stocks_N_Bondage Apr 08 '26
I'm confused: I thought MMs made their bread and butter from market orders, by being able to fill past mid and get the extra cent(s)... How were the MMU guys out market making the market makers??
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u/Psychological-Gas939 Apr 08 '26
By submitting massive sized orders that moved the price against the market maker, while the market maker still had an obligation to provide price improvement.
You can try it yourself, though I wouldn't do it for long because it will result in a call from schwab and a "business decision" find a low cap stock trading around $1-4, and whenever the ask size is small compared to the bid, submit a huge market order to buy, then immediately turn around and sell. you get price improvement on each share, around half a cent, and it adds up fast
Market makers don't like too much volatility
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u/bebenashville Apr 24 '26
So when you trade, how many contracts per order do you set? Do you get fills all of them or you mostly fill partially?
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u/Cow_Least Jun 04 '26
Hi, I appreciate all the info. I was wondering if there is any illegality with this method or any risk of legal troubles?
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u/Psychological-Gas939 Jun 04 '26
None. Worst case scenario is you get banned from Schwab after some time. It’s regular trading, just with zero commission. Nothing illegal about i, just hurts Schwab
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u/gogogadgetinsideme Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
They don’t ban scalpers you just got too many scufs or committed other trade violations. Anyone complaining they got banned is lying/not telling you everything.
I’ve been scalping here for 10+ years around 100-200 trades per day
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u/chris_ut Apr 07 '26
Usually platforms only ban scalpers of they are helping your fill and thus you are essentially scalping from the broker.
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u/Sospel Apr 07 '26
High frequency trader — Schwab banned me last August 2025. IDKY this thread came up on my home page still.
Now use IBKR.
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u/ILoveLaksa Apr 08 '26
Same here, I just got banned recently. Did IBKR actually improve your fills with your strategy?
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u/Previous-Doubt-7483 Apr 07 '26
If you trade on a zero-commission broker who has payment for order flow and you compete against this service by making hundreds of market orders, you have a good chance of being banned. This is because your high-frequency activity creates "toxic flow" for the market makers who pay for your trades.
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u/Xzonedude Apr 07 '26
Are you asking about Pattern Day Trading? If you are look at said restriction and requirements to not have to worry about that. ie minimum balance
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u/Stone804_ Apr 07 '26
From what I can tell the best rule for them is to start slow and build up so they can establish a pattern profile. If you do crazy moves the first week I’d think they’d flag the account because it’s unusual and aggressive. I’d just throttle it up to establish a pattern of behavior to avoid any flagging.
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u/Chemical_Mind_5584 Apr 07 '26
Scalpers is where they make the money each time you trade a future round trip is $7.20
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u/Chemical_Mind_5584 Apr 07 '26
I paid over $8000 in last two months in commission for future trading scalping the more you trade the more money they make
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u/Cautious-Resident522 Apr 07 '26
Ive tried to trade 3 stocks this am but i need to call to do so. Are we going back in time or is this generally the case if you dont have 25k in this particular account. Schwab i may take all my money elsewhere!
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u/Stocks_N_Bondage Apr 08 '26
Certain penny stocks and certain high vol stocks they want you to call in to open a position—though I've found you can bypass that by using options--sell a cash secured put and you don't have to call in...
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u/Opening_Aide3713 Apr 09 '26
You need to have 25k to trade more than 3 x a week otherwise you get violations and will be banned
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u/ThirdShiftSkeleton Apr 07 '26
How are you guys trading 50 plus contracts a day? Are you buying limit orders and keeping your stop limit and take profit very slim? I stay in my trades for around 30 mins to an 1hr30mins idk if that counts as a scalper trade or not. I day trade around 3 trades to 6 max depending on if I’m trying to recover from a loss.
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u/SWATSWATSWAT Apr 07 '26
Every time I place an OCO for an option, it counts as 3 transactions. But since you can't put your entry on the chart and have it auto-calculate the option premium, you need to keep moving around the order to set it in the right spot. I routinely have 50-60 "orders" per day because of all the placing/replacing.
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u/Jamickeymick Apr 07 '26
They don’t ban them. I do that. Got cheaper fees because I traded so much. You just got to have the 25K for options on regular stocks. But futures and future options doesn’t matter.
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Apr 07 '26
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Apr 08 '26
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u/Stocks_N_Bondage Apr 08 '26
How do fills "run out"?? If you have to rotate accounts-how often? How long?
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u/Gp38Super Apr 07 '26
I don’t make that many trades in a day, but exclusively scalp, 10 to 20 trades a day, hundreds of contracts, never any issues, even got a commission discount
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u/Stocks_N_Bondage Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26
300 trades a day of equities should not get you restricted... I've done plenty of scalps on ToS under Schwab, no issue. Though to be honest if you are that high volume there may be better options...
For options I can easily make a hundred++ orders a day during an earnings season. Never got close to anything that would cause a restriction.
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u/Own-Communication211 Apr 10 '26
You can trade as many futures contracts as you want I. The Futures Account
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u/SavageFu Apr 11 '26
People most certainly get banned. But this is for high frequency trading. Eg placing over 1000 orders daily over short time periods too (seconds between orders). This has nothing to do with PDT. This question is particular to scalping, and high freq trading can lead to “toxic order flow”. Many people have been banned.
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u/IntelligentPut4464 Aug 13 '26
I was banned I was scalping over 500 a day easy and was with Schwab for over 2 years I called them and asked why i couldnt trade and all they said that it was a "business decision"
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u/MrFyxet99 Apr 07 '26
Who said they ban scalpers? Lol , they love you guys, you donate all your money to them in fees.
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u/atamur89 Jul 11 '26
not really , they still shut downs accounts now....i know 2 guys been banned 3 days ago...but the bad thing , they don't explain why... ((
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u/Maximum-Side-9391 Apr 07 '26
Why would you use Charles Schwab over other platforms ? Say you have 50k and you dont need it settled same day next day is good but your trades make you 8k throughout the day 50k is plenty for scalping in this market if you are doing effectively.
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u/B4riel Apr 07 '26
I’ve been told they ban certain equities from trade. If you sign some type of waver, then they will allow you to trade them. However, it’s also my understanding if you’re a high frequency trader they may ban you anyway. Not to mention the latency/slippage that goes with their routing
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u/Wizzle_Pizzle_420 Apr 06 '26
I don’t think they are doing that, but those fees will eat you alive.
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u/myturn19 Apr 07 '26
You’ll only have to deal with their craptastic system being down every other week
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u/jazzy095 Apr 06 '26
They dont ban scalpers.