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Conventional Margin Trading Is Not Allowed with IRAs That reason alone might make you think twice about using your retirement funds to margin trade, not that you necessarily could anyway. If it doesn’t, you open yourself up to losses of all the cash you invested-and also all of the money you borrowed and the interest you owe on it.
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When you margin trade, you’re betting your rate of return will at least exceed your interest rate. This, along with the borrowed nature of the funds, makes margin trading inherently riskier than traditional investing. The securities in your account act as collateral on the loan, and you will also owe some amount of interest on what you borrow. This lets you purchase more securities with less of your own cash, which may help you achieve larger gains than you could with just your own money. With a margin account, you’re allowed to take out a loan to buy securities, usually up to half of the amount of the securities you want to buy. To margin trade, you must opt into a special type of brokerage account called a margin account that gives you access to a line of credit with your brokerage. Margin trading is leveraged investing, or using borrowed money to buy securities. Some IRAs even offer a limited form of margin trading. In many ways, IRAs work like normal investment accounts, giving you a very wide range of asset classes to invest in. Individual retirement accounts ( IRAs) incentivize people to save for retirement by offering valuable tax advantages.