Day trading is not some magical way to profit. Most people who make money around day trading are selling day trading services. Few make money over the long term day trading, and even fewer (any?) are making 2% every single day (400% over the course of a year with ~200 trading days).
The rules were put in place to protect people from being lured into day trading by day trading service companies. The thought was to prevent people from spending their rent money thinking they were going to get rich day trading. Also, trading with small amounts of money pushes people into penny stocks, which is an even faster way for someone to lose all their money.
Good catch, that could be some selective memory on my part. What I remember most is that it was very easy to make 2% on a good day, and we did that over the course of about 6 months or a year, trading about every other week and pulling the money out to sit idle on weeks that we were too busy to trade. I remember there were several times as many days that gained 5% (trading 2-4 times each day) than days that lost 5%.
One of the charts in etrade said we were up $40k over about a 4 month period and my dad had about $50k in play, trading on margin so working with about $100k. So the real return was more like 80% over 4 months, so I guess 240% for a year although I don't know if I'm doing that math right.
My biggest fear most days was honestly that there wasn't going to be enough volatility for the stock to move, meaning we threw away $7 to $28 on trading fees. I was moving furniture at the time and only made $80 on a good day so that was a lot of money for me then.
The rules were put in place to protect people from being lured into day trading by day trading service companies. The thought was to prevent people from spending their rent money thinking they were going to get rich day trading. Also, trading with small amounts of money pushes people into penny stocks, which is an even faster way for someone to lose all their money.
BTW, since the money is so easy you could always have traded futures which are exempt from PDT. https://www.tradingsetupsreview.com/futures-trading-best-opt...