Steve,
With stocks and options, you have to reconcile and show every
transaction in your account during the year on Schedule-D. For an
active trader, this can amount to a lot of work matching trades and
figuring out special situations like mergers. With futures
(commodities in IRS speak), the broker just gives you a statement that
says you made x dollars in the year on Y commodity (like the S&P 500
or Silver)... end of story. You fill out a different one page
schedule --not Schedule-D. Stocks are considered individual
investments. Futures are considered a hedge for real stuff as a
business need for producers. Futures speculators help keep the
commodities prices liquid and at a fair price which helps the economy
run smoothly.
BR,
Dennis
On Oct 21, 2008, at 5:18 PM, Steve Dugas wrote:
Hi Dennis - I have been thinking about trying futures lately, I know
they get the beneficial 60/40 tax treatment but I never knew the
paperwork was so much easier...could you briefly explain what the
IRS requires for futures? Thanks!
Steve
----- Original Message -----
From: Dennis Brown
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 3:19 PM
Subject: Re: [amibroker] Semi-OT: Portfolio Manager for frequent
Swing Trading
Hello Ken,
I am a frequent trader. I use thinkorswim as a broker. I use their
built-in tools for all actual trade accounting, including tax prep.
Actually tax accounting is such a pain, that I prefer to trade
futures because it eliminates 99.9% of the tax paperwork in the US.
To get an equity curve, I input my account basis and liquidation
value in a spreadsheet each night. It only takes about 5 minutes.
I also keep a trade log of my trades each day for my own learning
purposes.
There is no connection between TOS and AmiBroker programs.
Best regards,
Dennis
On Oct 21, 2008, at 3:47 AM, Ken Close wrote:
Google searches produce nothing useful, so I would like to ask this
question of frequent swing and day traders: what software do you
use to track trade results (closed trades especially but also open
trades)? Does it include calculation and display of a total
resulting equity curve? Does it help in any way for collecting and
exporting reports for use at tax time? Does it integrate with
Amibroker or is standalone? Please note that I am not asking about
the backtesting and resulting listing of trades and their
statistics in Amibroker, but rather the recording of real trades
made and closed over time.
As background to the questions, as I consider a more frequent
trading system compared to mutual funds and positions held for many
weeks if not multiple months, one that might make trades lasting
weeks at most and perhaps only days, my mind boggles at the
recordkeeping involved. With potential trade volumes in the 10 to
30 per week, the data entry starts to seem formidible. Surely some
(many?) on this list do this all the time, and I would appreciate
knowing something about your recordkeeping system(s), not your
timing systems (:-o).
Now before TJ jumps in here, I just reviewed the AB Account Manager
Help page. This seems like it is what I am asking for, but I
wonder if anyone uses it for their real work, and if its
"limitations" (one level of undo, chronological entry order, not
clear whether reports can be exported or not) inhibit it for the
purpose I am asking about. If you use something else, it must
offer benefits pveer the built-in Account Manager---what are they?
Is this enough information for you to respond? Thanks for sharing.
Ken
