Newb to investing qustions needing answers

[Dogpile]

<<The longest time frame for futures trading is the expiry of the contract which is only 3 months from start to finish. Anything more than that and ETFs are your thing.>>

I don't see much advantage to ETF's unless you truly are a long-term holder. Futures have a tax advantage over ETF's. 60/40 cap gains treatment on futures vs full tax rate if hold ETF less than 12 months.

also, you do have the option of easily trading futures in the overnight session -- for better or worse.

true though, you do have to deal with the rollover with futures.

[notouch]

The tax issue you mention is specific to the US. I don't know how relevant it is to the OP (not at all relevant to me).

There are other funding issues to consider. ETFs pay a dividend whereas if you were planning long term investments with futures you'd need a lot of money in your brokerage account (probably not receiving any interest) to cover the large drawdowns that you'd probably suffer.

[brownsfan019]

Here's my view - my risk capital is in daytrading of futures. My retirement and serious money is in ETF's. Trying to use futures for a long-term play is rather difficult in my opinion with rollovers and the amount of leverage at play here. You can't simply just sit on a losing futures position and know that sooner or later the market has gone up, so just hang on. Different mentalities in my opinion.

Not to mention, has anyone had success here opening an IRA at a custodian to daytrade futures that was quick and easy? I only attempted this once (with Millenium as the trustee) and I could not get simple emails returned. I thought since they could not return my simple email questions that trying to get actual funds there and get responses could be a pain and not worth the effort.

[cooter]

	Quote:	brownsfan019
	Not to mention, has anyone had success here opening an IRA at a custodian to daytrade futures that was quick and easy? I only attempted this once (with Millenium as the trustee) and I could not get simple emails returned. I thought since they could not return my simple email questions that trying to get actual funds there and get responses could be a pain and not worth the effort.

No one said it would be easy, Brownie!

But it is doable, for someone who really wants to get it done.

[brownsfan019]

	Quote:	cooter
	No one said it would be easy, Brownie! But it is doable, for someone who really wants to get it done.

It wasn't worth the effort for me I guess.

Trade my risk capital and invest my retirement money. Seems like a good combination to me. I could not imagine daytrading my retirement dollars. It doesn't get much more risky than that... If that's all you got, I guess you could trade a small piece of it, but I still would be leary of that. I've traded and been in the markets for quite awhile now and would not suggest using futures for retirement dollars, ESPECIALLY IN THE BEGINNING. Odds are that you will lose a good chunk of that money and when it's your retirement at work, those losses are a tad harder to swallow.

[cooter]

So the consensus would be - especially for newbies - don't trade your savings and retirement accounts away - be it 401K or IRA. You'd rather have that money years later available to you, instead of losing it now.