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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 ----- 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
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