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To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (84122)	5/5/2007 9:42:55 PM
From: upanddown	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 206326

Elroy, there may be exceptions but I believe the only options trading you can do in an IRA is to buy puts/calls and then close out those covered positions. At Fido, you cannot sell naked options in an IRA. I think the rationale for that is the same as banning short selling in an IRA. If you buy options, your losses are limited to the premiums. If you do anything short, options or stock, your losses are theoretically unlimited. The IRS doesn't really care if you lose all your money. What they really care about is you losing all your money BEFORE paying taxes on it.

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (84122)	5/5/2007 10:36:58 PM
From: ChanceIs	Respond to of 206326

>>>if they permit trading of Options, what could possibly be so horrible about margin?<<< Oh please Elroy. If the gummit allowed the use of margin borrowing in his IRA, he could loose everything. The government is there to protect J6P from himself, and to assure the IRA custodians a captive set of customers. Now lets consider a house. The government wants you to borrow against that so that your total debt exceeds all of your assets including your 401(k) and IRA. They even make the interest tax deductible. Why its deductible on a house and not an IRA is beyond me. This way the 2nd mortgage lenders get something to do. Have another swill of Victory Gin.

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (84122)	5/6/2007 2:25:46 PM
From: energyplay	Respond to of 206326

Margin on short trades, etc. Look at interactive brokers, IB interactivebrokers.com They have different margin models - interactivebrokers.com They also pay interest on the cash from large short positions.

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (84122)	5/6/2007 6:27:04 PM
From: mach	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206326

I think it may be possible to have a margin account using IRA funds, although it is more complicated than just having an IRA account at with your broker. The IRA rules allow investment in anything except life insurance or collectables. There are a number of IRA custodial firms that allow IRA investment in anything that does not violate the IRA rules and as such allow much more leeway than your typical brokerage IRA. These are sometimes called "self-directed or real-estate IRAs" (a google search will turn up info) and are usually geared towards owning real estate in your IRA. To obtain a margin account with your self-directed IRA funds, you would need to set up a single member LLC which will be wholly owned by your IRA. Your IRA funds the LLC with a capital contribution. The LLC can then open a margin account at a broker that allows business accounts to trade on margin, i.e. Interactive Brokers will allow this. Of course there is an up front expense to do this (setting up the LLC) and the annual custodial fee can run a few $100/year at minimum, so this approach would only make sense for a large account and a strong desire to trade on margin with your IRA funds. I would be interested to hear if anyone has tried this approach. Mark