Forex + ira

Hey all,

I’ve been a lurker for a while and traded pretty much only on demo accounts. I think I’m ready to starting trading 10-100 size lots with some real money.

I had one question though regarding whether or not I can use my money.

Most of my ‘investing’ money is in a Roth IRA. Is it possible to transfer this money to a FOREX account that is also an IRA or will I have to build a bankroll outside the IRA account?

Bottom line: I’d like to put about 1/3 of my current IRA account into the FOREX market. (I’m still young, so the risk isn’t an issue). And no, my IRA account isn’t huge…just about the right size to fund 10-100 size lots.

Thanks,

Fugi

I would leave the IRA where it is for now, get together
about $2 000 & use that to either spread bet at 1% of the
balance, or fund a broker account & trade 1% of the balance.

A jump from demo trading to trading 10-100 lots is immense,
you need to build up your emotional response to real loss first.

I would wait until you have a firm handle on trading before jumping into your IRA account. However, you can trade without be taxed using your IRA account. Most people I know that do this trade futures and stocks rather than forex though. At any rate, most people would recommend waiting until you are a very firm trader before trading with that sort of account.

I was going to say the same thing as TradePlayer… I haven’t heard of an IRA that could trade forex, but there are definitely IRAs that can trade forex futures. One that I know of is OptionsXpress.

yea, I’ve traded for years in stocks so I have a good grasp at what my acceptable levels of risk (with stops/goals) are and based on my bankroll that’s how I determined what size lots I could trade without over-risking my account.

I just wanted to know if the money I currently have in an IRA can be traded in FOREX and how I could do that if I wanted to do so.

Trust me, I’m not going to throw a bunch of money in and just start taking speculation shots and doubling up my account in a week. The main reason I want to do FOREX over stocks is that it fits my schedule better.

-fugi

Here’s a link describing how to trade Forex in the IRA account. Be sure to read the fine print behind everything you are doing though.