What is the best way to trade friend's money ?

IB lets you do everything you need. I trade my Mom's, Dad's, and Aunts. Mom and Dad are no problem. My Aunt drives me nutz. I have all allocated in 1/4's so each trade is the same. Mom and Dad are both IRA's so no tax problem, but the Aunt is a regular account, as is mine. I just point her to the website and hand hold her through the print process for taxes. Every other day she calls about some hot popular stock that is all hype and why aren't we in it.
I have my own separate account for my futures trading, I don't want to tell her about futures.
 
Quote from sellingrich:

Every other day she calls about some hot popular stock that is all hype and why aren't we in it.
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lol, that's funny but so true! I'm in forex and get the same thing, people have an insatiable urge to be involved somehow and feel it's their duty to 'help', lol. What can you say other than 'great idea, thanks for the tip, I'll take a look at that right now!'
 
I would recommend you only paper trade your friend's money. Use a simulated account.

Then when you lose all the money you can surprise him by returning his money
 
Quote from cabletrader:

Lots of negativity here about trading funds for friends/family, I'm in the other camp as I think trading other people's money is a great idea!

The way I look at it is if you have a consistently profitable strategy and trade it anyway then it's not a lot of extra work to trade sub accounts at the same time. If you're any good then in time the word spreads and the fund grows, along with your commissions every month.

Sounds like free money to me!

On the other hand if you're not that good at trading and tend to blow out accounts every now and then it's probably not a very good idea, losing a friend's or a family member's hard-earned cash can leave you lonely next Christmas, they kind of take it personally!
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I don't think he's simply adding to, or duplicating his trades. I get the sense that he's just going to trade the friend's money.

??

Don
 
Quote from ASTrader:

I have a very good stock market options trading system! My friends want me to trade their money using my trading system!

What are different ways to do it ? What are possible tax complications ?

Thank you for your help! :D
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dont do it
 
Quote from Don Bright:

I don't think he's simply adding to, or duplicating his trades. I get the sense that he's just going to trade the friend's money.

??

Don
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Oh right, sorry I didn't realize that!
 
Quote from DHOHHI:

I don't know how other brokers set it up but at MB Trading you just have a linked account (to your own) where the "friend" has signed a Limited Trading Authorization form. Any tax consequences are that of the "friend" as the account is in his/her name.
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I believe you have to pay tax for the performance fee received from trading OPM.

Your friend can deduct the advisor fee.

Does your friend's profit reported in 1099 from the brokerage firm is the net profit (i.e. profit - advisor fee paid to you if it is automatically charged as in IB advisor account)?
 
Quote from ASTrader:

I have a very good stock market options trading system! My friends want me to trade their money using my trading system!

What are different ways to do it ? What are possible tax complications ?

Thank you for your help! :D
More...

don't trade his money. Let him keep it before you lose it and lose their friendship

You THINK you have a very good system. You will learn quickly the first time you blow up.
 
Quote from ASTrader:

I have some follow up questions - do I have to be certified Financial Advisor or Financial Investor to able to trade friend's money ? or a Limit Power of Attorney to my friend's account is good enough to trade his/her money ?

Any one has any thoughts or links to how the taxes work in such cases ?

Thank you for your help in advance! :)
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As far as qualifications, I think it pretty much is going to depend on what markets you're trading and how much money you're managing. As far as futures go, I think you're allowed to trade for as many as 15 people or manage less than $250k (my numbers may be off a bit) without needing to be a registered individual so long as you don't hold yourself out to others as a professional. I'm not really sure about other markets.

As far as I know, you're always going to need a limited POA if you're trading an account that is in someone else's name. I think this is even true for registered individuals like IB's and CTA's, with the only exception being CPO's, hedge funds, and other similar structures.

As far as the taxes go, the account holder is responsible for the tax liability, but any fees that he pays you is going to count as earned income that you will need to pay taxes on.
 
I have traded friends' money before

Make sure you have the means to repay your friends in-full if you blow-up (that way your friendship does not suffer)

I only took on $10,000 and if any losses occured, I knew I had the $$$ to replinish their capital back to $10,000.

This takes a lot of pressure off you and frees you to take on the risk you need to take to be effective.
 
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