Why is record keeping for Futures trades so archaic?

[theflyingbuffalo]

I mostly trade stocks/ETFs and not futures so I may be missing something, but why do brokers produce clean gain/loss record keeping for stocks and ETFs, as well as individual buys/sells in transaction history, but for Futures it's just a daily or monthly pdf that's not easily copy/pasted.

It's not that big a deal but is there any reason why brokers don't provide better organization? I'm on Schwab (previously TDA) using ThinkOrSwim. I manually record all my trades and for futures this becomes a bit of a nuisance when documenting fees etc. especially if I have multiple buys or sells on the same instrument over a short period.

 

[Robert Morse]

Hi- Not sure what you need that they do not offer. We introduce to Wedbush Futures. They provide a daily and monthly report in PDF form, emailed to the customer. Their website has a reporting tool, where you can export all your trades in CSV format. When I had an open account, I only looked at the Daily statements, but other tools in detail were available. See the left side.

 

[Thon1960]

While futures markets have embraced electronic trading, record-keeping often lags behind. Legacy systems and fragmented data from brokers can make it cumbersome to track positions, margins, and historical performance. This lack of transparency can hinder risk management, tax reporting, and analyzing trading strategies. Modern futures traders, armed with sophisticated algorithms, deserve record-keeping that's just as nimble.

 

[swingtrader123]

I mostly trade stocks/ETFs and not futures so I may be missing something, but why do brokers produce clean gain/loss record keeping for stocks and ETFs, as well as individual buys/sells in transaction history, but for Futures it's just a daily or monthly pdf that's not easily copy/pasted.

It's not that big a deal but is there any reason why brokers don't provide better organization? I'm on Schwab (previously TDA) using ThinkOrSwim. I manually record all my trades and for futures this becomes a bit of a nuisance when documenting fees etc. especially if I have multiple buys or sells on the same instrument over a short period.

Stock transaction needs to be reported to the IRA as separate transactions. Futures are section 1256 contract and are marked-to-market. The profit and losses for all transactions are reported as a single entry. Individual transactions are not required so brokers don't spend the time to identify individual transaction.