For anyone a question about the 48 hours it takes for your sell trade to clear. It's not actually 48 hours is it? For years we've been buying back a stock a few hours before the 48 hours has expired in two business days. Assuming you don't have a pile of cash ready to immediately cover the buy.
So say you sell at 3 pm est and two days later you buy it back at 10 am est a full 5 hours before the 48 hours. I'm asking this about regular trades not day trading or margin trades.
Which leads me to my next question, are funds being "fronted" to you for that 5 hours or a few hours before the full 48 hours is up? Maybe "clears in 48 hours" is misnomer, not sure.
My net research says it clears fairly early in the morning of the 2nd business day. I'm just checking here on the forum to be sure that's the case in way over 99% of such trades. And if anyone has had a problem in the situation described above in buying back a stock in the morning at the open on the 2nd business day. Again this is if you don't keep extra money in your brokerage cash to buy back a lot earlier.
My understanding is that this can actually vary based on your broker.
The 48hr period can start when you buy the stock, and not just when you sell it. When you sell it, if your funds settled to buy the shares in the first place, some brokers will forward you the cash from when you go to sell and it is not considered margin (they anticipate to receive the funds from the sale of the shares).
Regardless, it should be pretty clear in your account what cash you have available at any point in time. For my broker, it is referred to as "Cash & Sweep Vehicle"... this number contains all my settled cash available for purchase immediately, there should be no guessing needed when you go to purchase a new stock. You should also have separate lines that represent margin and the like.
TD Ameritrade used to forward the cash immediately if the buy side had already settled, but I don't think they do it anymore. It usually takes 2-3 biz days for the cash to appear for me after a sale even if it's not a day trade.