@spencer00 If you did not make the Mark to Market Election, you are not a Day Trader. You can't just decide that you are one and that's it. The IRS is very clear on this. If the criteria you meet is the one listed by AmyC, then the criteria is that you have a business. But that business is not that of a Day Trader.
Beginning in 1997 the IRS permitted active traders, who have qualified for "trader tax status" with the IRS and operate as a trading business, to elect a method of accounting called Mark-To-Market (MTM).
Traders can choose to use the mark-to-market rules, investors can't. If a trader doesn't make a valid mark-to-market election under section 475(f), then he or she must treat the gains and losses from sales of securities as capital gains and losses and report the sales on Schedule D (Form 1040), Capital Gains and Losses and on Form 8949, Sales and Other Dispositions of Capital Assets as appropriate.
Topic No. 429
