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As much as possible I try to trade in my IRA accounts—in order to defer taxes of course. It is a bit counter intuitive to be doing more speculative activities in a retirement account, but I think this approach strongly supports my overall goal of achieving good returns, with reasonable risks, while compounding growth. If your money is in Roth accounts, all the better, but I suspect many of the people interested in trading in their IRAs are restricted to traditional IRAs.

Certainly there are restrictions of what sorts of trades you can do in an IRA account.  For example you can’t short a stock in an IRA account, but option restrictions have eased some over the years,  and market innovations like short ETFs (e.g., SH, SDS) have effectively bypassed some of the more onerous restrictions.    Brokers vary in what they allow in IRA accounts, so it might pay to ask around.   Fidelity for example allows me to do some types of equity option spreads, while Schwab does not.   Covered calls and protective puts on long positions seem to be broadly allowed.

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