Could not sell out of a penny stock

W

Whip

Hi, I started trading live today and ran into an issue with selling a stock. I bought PIXY at 4.61 using a hotkey. When price reached 4.76, I attempted to close half of my position using the hotkey but got an error 'Hard to Borrow'. I also tried the Sell button in the order window, same result.

I had to move my stop loss right up to the price, to get it hit, that took me out of the trade. It was quite a scary moment. How come stoploss worked fine but straight up selling didn't? Can you explain what might have happened? Is it related to SSR?

I've emailed my broker too but it doesn't look like they'll reply back by Monday's session and I wanna be prepared by then.

My hotkey for selling were as follows:

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Broker: CMEG
Platform: Sterling Trader Pro
 
Whip said:
Hi, I started trading live today and ran into an issue with selling a stock. I bought PIXY at 4.61 using a hotkey. When price reached 4.76, I attempted to close half of my position using the hotkey but got an error 'Hard to Borrow'. I also tried the Sell button in the order window, same result.

I had to move my stop loss right up to the price, to get it hit, that took me out of the trade. It was quite a scary moment. How come stoploss worked fine but straight up selling didn't? Can you explain what might have happened? Is it related to SSR?

I've emailed my broker too but it doesn't look like they'll reply back by Monday's session and I wanna be prepared by then.

Platform: Sterling Trader Pro
More...

It appears that your hot key entered a limit. Nobody took the bait at that time. But your stop became a market order when hit, so it was filled.
 
Whip said:
Hi, I started trading live today and ran into an issue with selling a stock. I bought PIXY at 4.61 using a hotkey. When price reached 4.76, I attempted to close half of my position using the hotkey but got an error 'Hard to Borrow'. I also tried the Sell button in the order window, same result.

I had to move my stop loss right up to the price, to get it hit, that took me out of the trade. It was quite a scary moment. How come stoploss worked fine but straight up selling didn't? Can you explain what might have happened? Is it related to SSR?
More...

While there are often good reasons for using a limit order, there is always the risk of not getting filled as price moves away from you. Eventually you'll learn what's best in a particular environment. Still, there is no perfect solution.

The best order entry I've seen is IB's "Midprice" order, which tries to fill between the bid/ask, and will float as price moves. Not perfect, but as close as it gets.
 
Did you have a resting stop order when trying to sell? Probably have to modify/cancel that then sell. System probably got confused as you had a stop
Order tied to a position and sell order looked like a short. Say you sold but then you had a stop order still open, it could reverse your position.
 
Whip said:
How come stoploss worked fine but straight up selling didn't? Can you explain what might have happened? Is it related to SSR?
More...
This error most likely means that the system categorized your order as selling short, rather than closing position. In other words, the sum of outstanding sell shares exceeded your current long position. Was your stop loss order for full position?
 
I think Metamega and qlai are correct. I think I'll need to cancel stop, close half position and recreate stop. Or is there a better way? Is this how you guys do it?
 
Whip said:
Or is there a better way? Is this how you guys do it?
More...
Use mental stop on initial entry, trailing once break even. Must position size to be able to survive a flush against you. Using stops on low floats is like asking to be stopped out, imho (I don’t trade them)
 
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