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Yes, FICA = SE tax in this case. If you put away $50k into your solo 401K, then the SE is quite large. But it may be still better than paying IRS the tax on the $50k capital gain. Time to be creative with offshore account.

1. Divergence from stronger dollar/weak EUR; 2. Strength on still weak fundamentals; 3. Strong up moves on so-so econ indicators. CL has diverged from dollar index and equity index. I'm not sure what is driving it now :(

Energy spread trading is not good for everyone. It is actually boring most of the days since the daily movements can be small. It is only good for the disciplined folks. You make a killing or lose your shirt on the few special days (we all know what those days are). On the other hand...

IB offers both "Smart" and "direct" spreads. The "direct" bid-ask is narrower. I never use "smart" and never pay attention to it.

Spreads are traded electronically. I believe there are 3rd parties that maintain some matching mechanism. If I remember correctly, TT maintains such a spread book. It may get feeds from Globex or other parties. Their marketing reps pushed very hard for us to trade through them. But I could be...

Do not know what you meant "ideal" trading hours. Most of the CL activities happy at the first 1/2 and the last 1/2 of the regular floor session. Most of the reversions happen during the last 1/2 since the day traders close out the intra-day trades. Same with the first 1/2 since they open at...

Energy spread trading has a relatively high return/risk ratio if you really understand how the spreads behave. A lot of that is fundamental driven. But since the spreads are relatively stable, you'll have to use higher volume. So your risk may not be low. Also, you can't trade often since...

I think it depends on the broker and the screen. Most of the screens have the entire matrix or grid for all the spreads, front to back. So the spreads can be either positive or negative (though mostly negative for normal carry market). When traders talk about spreads, they always talk about the...

Energy spreads are very liquid. If you have TT Trader, you can even trade butterfly and condors easily. For butterfly, it is a spread on two spreads and involves 3 futures. But you'll have to pay commission for each contract.

I already own a LLC for several years and know the reporting. But it is not a trading LLC. No experience with a prop shop. I'd rather trade my own capital and have total control of it. Do not have to share gain (or loss) with anyone. Yes, tiddlywinks gave good advice. I already know tons...

I only stated what I think. It is great to hear some great idea. I may talk to other accountant to see this makes and works. As for me, I can still engineer the tax situation what way I want. For the LLC, if I lose $, then I can write the entire amount off against my regular income. I hope...

I get it. So it is a strategy, and you'll have to explain this to IRS. I do not know if this is legal. Here you mix the two together: personal investment and your trading business. To me, personal investments go to your schedule D. Your business trading goes to schedule C. This is not...

Then how do you report the reset of capital gain (trading profit)? in schedule C? I do not think your can separate the capital gain (trading profit) separately and report it in Schedule D.

I'm not sure if this is correct. If you run your money like a fund, all gain/loss and expenses go onto the Schedule C. Since you trade full time and trading gain is your only income, then I think the net gain of your LLC should be considered as your business income, not a capital gain. That...

Hi, I understand most of the differences of solo LLC over no LLC. My question here is on the LLC earning. If I make $$ from my LLC, say $50k (after expenses) from trading futures (only). Does this earning go to my top line as wage/earning? I really like it to be considered as capital gain...

Na, I'll just give eSignal a look. The platform provided by my Broker is good enough for me know though I missed some of the real-time news.

>$500 is a little too much. The CQG may be priced at the same range. The ProphetX would be somehow cheater. I've not tried the regular eSignal Pro. With energy news and the CME fee waiver, it looks like a good option. Just want something basic for charting and real-time news.

This is the software: http://www.interactivedata.com/index.php/Contents/show/content/FutureSourceWorkstation I like the Energy Workstation. Anyone knows roughly how much it costs? $250/month? This product is made by eSignal, and is somehow different from the regular eSignal. It was...

This is not a huge spike. When Blue Gold (sp?) had trouble, I think CL dropped like $4 or more. With all the auto trading system and the stop order, you can run through the stops easily. The traders who placed $108 stop order lost shirts today.

Most of the day trading technics apply. Then you can analyze the wave counts, ratio retracement (Fabonacci, etc), and other technicals, like MA cross or parabolic. Yes, you would put on a hard stop, and a profit target. Then you can adjust them, using SAR parabolic if you like.