Edit--I meant to ask about "short puts" at TOS. The TOS faq pages are back online, but I do not see anything about options on futures available for IRA accounts.
This is fascinating discussion. I have some IRA money with Millennium Trust and I use it to trade futures through AMP Clearing. But Millennium Trust does charge a monthly fee for the privilege. When I opened the Milliennium Trust account years ago I'm pretty sure that IB did not at that time allow me to trade futures in my IRA (otherwise I would have done so as I had an IRA with them). The whole thing seems pretty ambiguous -- Is it OK? If not, who say's it is or isn't? Why do only some brokers allow it? And what brokers do allow it? I'd like to hear from others who know anything about this question. Thanks in advance
I found this at IB. http://ibkb.interactivebrokers.com/node/188 It very clearly says "Not allowed to trade futures (including single stock futures) and options on futures." in IRAs. Are you saying this has been changed in the past day? Or was it not being enforced by IB? Thanks.
It just changed from Friday to Saturday. The Google cached page version from Mar 6, 2015 14:26:43 GMT clearly states "- Long or short futures contracts" as permitted.
We are Introducing Brokers to IB. I can give them a call Monday if the IB rep that monitors ET does not respond as to what the change was issued from. Bob
I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the reasons for this and the method it's being deployed with. I am by no means an expert on this but wouldn't this open IB up to claims and arbitration if you get stuck with positions and losses because they block you from closing out your positions without a phone call and a long wait? I have 50+ open futures positions in an IRA, am I going to have to spend hours on the phone this week closing them out? I know they have the technology to set accounts to only allow closing trades, so why not impement that? It makes no sense at all. And why not send a bulletin via TWS or email? I know IB is not known for their customer service but I get popups daily about all sorts of useless events (some exchange I've never heard of has some problem) so how could you not notify people? Seems like a class action lawsuit waiting to happen.
NinjaTrader Brokerage is rumored to be supporting futures trading in IRA accounts; but I have been unable to find any documentation confirming this on their site.
I don't trade options so I didn't look into that a year ago when I investigated TOS. One thing about TOS that is important to note is that they have a $25,000 min account balance required to trade Futures in an IRA account.
It might be time to look into the merits of opening a "checkbook ira" if you want to stay with IB. Also, don't know if this is the reason for the change, but IB changed custodians for IRA's on Jan 1 from Delaware Charter Guarantee & Trust to Equity Trust Company. Effective January 1, 2015, Equity Trust Company, a South Dakota trust company, has been appointed successor trustee with regard to certain tax-advantaged savings accounts previously supported by Delaware Charter Guarantee & Trust Company d/b/a Principal Trust Company and, in connection therewith, will provide certain recordkeeping, administration and compliance services with regard to such accounts. https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=iraInformation&p=irafaqs
Regulatory or perceived regulatory issues related to IRA's getting implied financing through futures contracts, UBTI reporting, or other compliance issues. Obviously they previously thought it was fine since they allowed it before. The regulators haven't been getting more lax lately and their favorite means of regulating the retail crowd is to push the bad news out via their brokers by requiring onerous record keeping requirements.