Hi guys, Long time reader, first time poster here. I wanted to introduce myself and give you a short bio of how/why I'm here: I've been trading since 2005. I made all the newbie mistakes during the first 2 years and lost about 25K. Since then I've gained a tremendous amount of knowledge. I've adopted a very diciplined trading style (based strictly on TA) and I've been fairly successful at day and swing trading. Several months ago I moved from Cali to the Mid-West to start a new job. I wanted to get out of Cali because my company was freezing salaries and cutting 401k contributions. Also, Cali is a completely broke welfare state. I believe civil unrest/riots will start there once the welfare checks stop going out. I do not want to be there for that. The new job is not what I thought it would be (or what they promised it would be). I've basically had it with all the corporate BS. No matter how secure I feel, or how high my salary is, I always felt like a subordinate slave. I'm also having health related problems due to workplace stress. For the past couple years I always thought about quiting my full time job to become a full time trader. The freedom of being my own boss and working when I want to work is very liberating and empowering. I am finally ready to execute my plan. I'm sure I'll have many questions about M2M and tax issues. I look forward to interacting and discussing all things trading with the members on this board. Best regards, JAP
If you have trouble moderating stress, how different will it be from your regular job? If you have a very large monetary cushion to fall back on, then I imagine it wouldn't be a problem. I don't have that luxury. I just finished my first year trading, and it taught me to moderate stress better than anything I've ever done, but only very late in the first year did I get that ability, once I mastered 100% disciplined trading. As for M2M vs. recognizing gains as regular income, our accountant recommended the latter to avoid paying self-employment tax. The advantage of running your trading as a business is that you contribute to social security (for what that will be worth), can write off all your expenses, don't have to worry about wash sale rule, etc.