george8: Please also note that the election has to be made in advance. (If you wanted the election to apply to the year ended 12/31/2002, the election had to have been made by 4/15/2002.)
This "in advance rule" has unnecessarily trapped many a trader with capital losses that had to be carried forward rather than used currently to offset other income. On the whole though, if done correctly, being classified as a trader using the mark to market method of accounting is *very* advantageous.
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