ah! ok, thanks for explaining.
my original question was for a broker for day and swing trading, so im not saying day trading exclusively.
trading is attractive to me for a number of reasons too long to enumerate, the first one being, to quote clark gable in "the misfits," that "it's better than a wage"

i've been employed, and i've been self-employed, and i enjoyed self-employment better, but still i had to work for the client. trading is certainly a challenge, but the fact that it requires no interpersonal dynamics is a huge plus for me. the feedback is 100% objective.
and i say trading not investing , because i'm interested in short-term speculation, not decades-long moves. my investments are handled elsewhere by professionals--this is something else, using risk capital.
as for day or swing trading, it really depends on the market, because different instruments behave differently.
however, one advantage of day trades as i've experienced is that they don't make me wake up in the middle of the night wondering what my money is doing

seriously though, whenever i have a trade going overnight or longer, i'll wake up at 1am and see what it's doing. it's nice to be able to shut down the computer and think about something else.
so i'm not aiming for massive wins, just a little day scalping.
i'm not saying this to verbally philosophize about it though, because my plan is to empirically test things, and adjust as i get feedback. empiricism beats rationalism in practice--and that's how i found i need a better broker with more/better tools.