I'm soliciting opinions on using one's company for trading? I'm a contractor (working in risk management) and have some excess money sitting in my company. This is basically, after tax, my salary. But it's more than enough (even if I loose some of it). I'm wondering what you guys would think of me getting an IB account and play around with this money a bit. Fairly low-risk, but just trying to catch the next wave in the bull market. My thought is that any losses will be pre-tax and will be sucked up by my company. Any profits are taxed, but at least I'm covered on the down side. Either way, I'm keen to go with IB. I'm in Australia, so going with Comsec, eTrade or even Westpac is not something I'm keen on doing. Given that they're still expensive and only allow me to trade on the ASX (basically). I know, eTrade offers Global Shares, but look at those costs!
Traders that usually view trading with the thought process of... Play around with this money a bit will most likely view trading as just a hobby along with losing all of that extra cash. You'll probably be better off just "investing" that extra cash you got sitting around in the markets or in some other "investment resource" (e.g. art collection).