Dear forum,
I currently live in Europe and I am running an MT5-based EA strategy with mainly stock index CFDs at a European CFD broker.
Next year, I will move to the US. I am now pondering if and how I can continue trading my strategy in the US.
I see two options:
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Switch to a US futures broker. Some of them offer MT5 (AMP, Ironbeam). The catch is that my strategy requires MT5 in hedging mode, which is not allowed by US regulators. US brokers only offer MT5 in netting mode. It remains to be seen whether my strategy can be adapted to accommodate that.
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Keep using an offshore CFD broker. That raises numerous questions: Will any foreign CFD broker accept US persons? Is it legal for me to use such a broker? I know that it is illegal to offer CFD services to US persons. Yet I could not figure out whether it is also illegal for US individuals to use such services given they declare taxes properly.
Do you see other options?
As an additional question: How do you file taxes when using an offshore (forex/CFD) broker? As I understand it, the IRS requires you to file any and all trades separately (Schedule D). Assuming that non-US brokers do not report your trades in an IRS-suited format, it would be cumbersome to do all this manually when you have a lot of trades.
I greatly appreciate your input.
Thank you very much!
Pete