cctv
Member
Regarding Roth vs Traditional IRA for this contest. I would personally recommend a Roth IRA if you have confidence in your trading/investing abilities to grow the account successfully. Since with a Roth IRA, not only are you not taxed on withdrawals after 59 1/2, but also you aren't subject to the mandatory distribution requirements starting 70 1/2 for traditional IRAs. For Traditional IRAs, you are taxed at your income tax rate for all withdrawals vs Roth IRA withdrawals are tax-free (generally speaking, of course this is assuming it's not an early withdrawal accruing a penalty).
However, if you think you'll probably blow it all and end up with zero in the account going after big/elusive trades, then it might make sense to do a Traditional IRA since your contribution would be tax-deductible (generally speaking). For a Roth IRA, you would need to contribute post-tax dollars.
That said, $1 million in a Roth IRA is a traders dream. Or maybe just my dream.
It is good to have a dream, and it will be really fun to have teammates working toward the same dream. It is like marathon, I may not extend to the last miles, but I will try my best.
I think the most dangerous period is growing from 5.5k to somewhere say 50k.
One failed aggressive trade can easily weep you out from the game; on the other hand conservative strategy is way to slow. This will force us to find another TSLA.
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DaveT: Am I mistaken? Thought that you could not open a Roth IRA in certain tax brackets. Guess you are assuming for thos that can't you will ask them to roll traditional IRA into ROTH?
For guys with large income, you can use backdoor roth IRA
http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Backdoor_Roth_IRA