I am looking for a list of "allowed assets" or "allowed holdings " for a ROTH self directed IRA.

Or a list of prohibited assets.

Thanks

I think you will find that there is some variation among custodians as to what they will allowed. Custodians appear to be more restrictive then the IRS rules.

Most custodians will allow stocks, bonds, covered calls, mutual funds or things that are readily traded with prices set my active markets. Anything that has unlimited liability (various puts/call options for example) will normally be prohibited as you can't just deposit additional money to cover. Generally, custodians detest anything whose value can not be established such as non-traded stocks, warrants, over-the-counter issues, etc.

The message board accountants at this site will probably add to the above list. Call your current or prospective custodian, ask for the backroom IRA specialists, then ask them about allowed and disallowed investments. The range of "allowed" is huge and you should be able to find many attractive investments.

John G.

Thanks for the reply. My ROTH IRA is self directed held at e-trade. I read your response as : I need to talk with e-trade backroom IRA specialists and have them tell me what e-trade allows.

Correct. There are some specialty houses that will allow more "unussual" investments. But, I don't recommend them because you don't need "unussual" to be successful and these custodians charge much higher annual fees and commissions.