Do you treat the IRA like an extention of your main taxable account or you treat it like a separate portofolio altogether in terms of position sizing?
My IRAs allow me to trade or invest without paying taxes on the earnings. This means my effective annual rate of return is between 50% and 100% more than it would be otherwise. Compound this for a few years and you will see it is much more beneficial to trade and invest in an IRA, even if you must withdraw prior to the correct age and pay a penalty. A 10% penalty is nothing compared to being free of all those taxes every year, especially with the compounding of those extra returns. -Raystonn
In general I think you need to be a little more cautious with an IRA because you cannot simply add more funds to cover a drawdown in your trading. Other than that I treat it like a regular account, but making sure I have a little larger cushion to cover any potential drawdowns....
Are you trading a Roth IRA? When you talk about withdrawing early and paying a penalty, I assume you are speaking hypothetically, if the IRS should challenge your trading an IRA?
Who says you can not "Trade" in an I.R.A? You just can not use margin. I trade the shit out of my I.R.A. Rollover and have never been bitch slapped by Uncle Sam.
What I'm talking about is trading and compounding your earnings in an IRA, then taking an early distribution to live off some of those earnings. You actually make more money doing this rather than trading in a standard account. The 10% penalty plus taxes you must pay on the amount distributed is nowhere near the amount of extra earnings you made by hiding those earnings from taxes for many years in a row. As long as you had a few years of growth on this money in the IRA before you start your distributions, it's no contest. -Raystonn