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How large are your combined speculative trading accounts in comparison to your combined retirement accounts?
The topic of trading account sizing is always a popular one. I wanted to approach it from a different perspective, thinking than comparing it to retirement accounts would help make it more meaningful.
Please vote and discuss.
How large are your combined speculative trading accounts in comparison to your combined retirement accounts?
I see the majority of responses so far indicate retirement is >10x greater than speculative. I am glad to see this, I was fearing it would not be the case.
Now some people have said they have no retirement account, which isn't the best of news. But everyone has their own financial situation of course.
What is also interesting is that so far very few people have indicated they are trading from their actual retirement account. I figured quite a few would be doing this.
I trade futures exclusively within an IB-based IRA that seems to work relatively well. I've had other "investments" at Fidelity & Vanguard that did well pre-2000 (and 2016-2017) but with 2018 having gone sideways, I'm back to trying to make .5%-1%/day the "hard way" .
Trading: Primarily Energy but also a little Equities, Fixed Income, Metals and Crypto.
Frequency: Many times daily
Duration: Never
Posts: 5,057 since Dec 2013
Thanks Given: 4,399
Thanks Received: 10,225
That was my initial reaction, but then I was shocked to see that the second post popular answer is that 25% of people have no retirement account!!! Who is speculatively trading futures when they don't have a retirement account?
In many parts of the world this is the normal case. People speculate exactly for that reason. Because they have no retirement account. They are trying to improve their financial situation, and speculation in their part of the world is the only possible way to achieve it.
Trading: Primarily Energy but also a little Equities, Fixed Income, Metals and Crypto.
Frequency: Many times daily
Duration: Never
Posts: 5,057 since Dec 2013
Thanks Given: 4,399
Thanks Received: 10,225
Admittedly retirement account rules are different across the world, but if we consider the case where retirement accounts are tax advantaged, then the expectancy of money put into a retirement account will nearly always be greater than the expectancy of speculatively trading futures. I'm not trying to preach from an ivory tower, but one reason many people have a bad financial situation, is because they make bad financial decisions.
Agreed. For example at the moment I live in Bulgaria. That's EU and not a 3rd world country. Here a retirement account is an exception. People earn an average of 300-500 Euro/month and financial speculation and gaming is scaringly popular.