Hello, all. I was studying and starting to demo and backtest in earnest when I had to step back for personal reasons. After a 17 month hiatus I’m looking at taking another stab at this.
One thing I seemed to notice while I was active is that I didn’t see a significant percentage of US residents who appeared to be successful. I began to wonder if the tax laws and regulations here made FX success inordinately different compared to other countries. Comments, anyone?
I’m no expert, but I think USA has restrictions on shorting and no tax-breaks for winning? Is that correct? In UK you can short anything you like and profits on Forex/commodity Spread-betting (we essentially do our trading on gambling websites) is tax free!
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that before from folks in the UK. To be honest, I started studying Forex as much as an intellectual exercise as anything else, and I know playing with Monopoly money in a demo account isn’t the same thing, psychologically speaking. But before I put skin in the game it’d be nice to know I could keep from losing said skin without emigrating to Myanmar or something.
Is there a particular geo that stood out whose residents appear successful? 
Not really, but then again it’s not like I’ve made a study of it. Just impressions. And I know that just because someone else is successful or not doesn’t mean the same will be true for me. I just know the gov likes to tax and regulate everything here. I’m trying to figure out if its to the point that forex is just not a workable endeavor here for someone who would like to eventually make a living at it.
We can’t hold trades over the weekend and we can’t trade in both directions on the same pair. We also have to close trades in the order we placed them.
We have to work around these rules if we want to do anything but scalp or work off of 4H or less timeframes.
It would be nice to see a weekly or monthly trend and go with it, but we have to close out trades by Friday afternoon, whether they are in profit or not.
So we can day trade or scalp. But we can’t sit on trades for very long.
Well, you could always get out of bed earlier…
My beauty sleep is just too important, Steve. If you ever saw me, you’d say I need more of it.
Thanks.
@AmericanTrader Wow, I knew about the trading in both directions (Hedging), wasn’t aware of the closing positions in the order they where opened and close out requirements prior to weekends…
The US Retail Trader Market is definitely skewed in favor of the Financial Industry. Almost makes it impossible for retail to trade Commodities or Stocks if you have to close at the EOW.
I wonder how long before they attempt to impose these restrictions on other regulated jurisdictions in the retail trading space.
Australian retail operators (Full Time) don’t get the tax forgiveness that Spread Betting laws allow UK residents. We can claim all costs (Equipment, Spreads, Commissions, Subscriptions, SWAP… Losses) that generate our taxable income/profit.
I’ll be right over!
I usually close trades on Friday if I have any open. But I’ve left some open over the weekend. Just can’t do anything with them until regular trading hours. And worrying about gaps and increasing spread.
For both winning and losing trades, you could tighten up your S/L This also carries a risk, but you have no control over what the market throws at you.
I’m down $70 this morning. Hoping a buy on EUR/USD pulls me back to the green for the day.