There is no way to say. It completely depends on whether/when lenders respond to locate requests. More often than not, they will respond affirmatively to some titles while leaving others in an indeterminate state. They rarely say "no, this stock is definitely not available". As I mentioned previously, most of the SLB business in the morning is focused on actual settlement day borrow/return activity which must get done as early as possible. Only after the same day deals are concluded do most lenders even begin consider future lending activity or locate requests. Our experience to date is that few locate responses come back before 11:00 am.
IB auto-locate
- Thread starter alanm
- Start date
There is no way to say. It completely depends on whether/when lenders respond to locate requests. More often than not, they will respond affirmatively to some titles while leaving others in an indeterminate state. They rarely say "no, this stock is definitely not available". As I mentioned previously, most of the SLB business in the morning is focused on actual settlement day borrow/return activity which must get done as early as possible. Only after the same day deals are concluded do most lenders even begin consider future lending activity or locate requests. Our experience to date is that few locate responses come back before 11:00 am.
I, too, would not generally be served by this timeframe, as I would get rejects early in the pre-market, and not be interested in those names once the market opens (and certainly not as late as 1100 ET). On rare occasions, the same stock may continue to be in play after-hours, where I might make use of it.
I'd be happy to set a default order flag that says "do not auto-locate" in order to save resources, as long as I'm occasionally able to manually un-set the flag in the order ticket when I do want to locate.
I CAN see it being useful when a stock gets after-hours news, shows up in a newsletter or overnight scan, etc., and a bunch of clients want to play in it the next day. Being able to get that availability back to 09:30 (at least) would probably be key for them.
I'll mention that another SLB desk that I'm familiar with seems to have a list of "premium" stocks that initially reject, but they can immediately put up for your account after telling you what the premium is. This list seems to be available to them (presumably from their counterparties) at 08:00 ET.
I'd be happy to set a default order flag that says "do not auto-locate" in order to save resources, as long as I'm occasionally able to manually un-set the flag in the order ticket when I do want to locate.
I CAN see it being useful when a stock gets after-hours news, shows up in a newsletter or overnight scan, etc., and a bunch of clients want to play in it the next day. Being able to get that availability back to 09:30 (at least) would probably be key for them.
I'll mention that another SLB desk that I'm familiar with seems to have a list of "premium" stocks that initially reject, but they can immediately put up for your account after telling you what the premium is. This list seems to be available to them (presumably from their counterparties) at 08:00 ET.
I cannot even begin to try and understand this statement.
I've been shorting "hard-to-find" stocks for 13 years via many diffrent brokers/clearing firms...
And it's standard practice to have a list and locate stocks pre-9:30.
Out of 1000s and 1000s of locates... > 90% of them were done pre-9:30.
** It's just totally, completely routine **.
You make it sound like getting a locate is some sort of exotic practice.
rm+
Your numbers are nonsensical. What is 20M ?? How do you get $500?
20M = 20,000 x 0.004 = $80
20M = 200,000 x 0.004 = $800
20M = 2,000,000 x 0.004 = $8,000
20M = 20,000,000 x 0.004 = $80,000 ???
If you guys had any inclination to help me...
I myself could probably do extra 20,000 shares/day...
Go from 70K to 90K.
This entire post contradicts the fact...
That a good Stock Loan department is absolutely integral to a quality broker...
And is typically viewed as a profit center.
Especially a firm that seeks to do business with professional traders.
The truth is that posting a list of 5,000 stocks...
Updating it once an hour or so...
And giving your customers ZERO tools for managing this unwieldy list...
Is almost Stone Age primitive.
For example...
Can I find out if a stock is shortable in real-time using the API?
If not... there is simply no excuse for this.
rm+
I agree with the others that this is not an optimal set-up, and that at the open is where it's really needed.
Yet, this has absolutley nothing to do with IB, this is simply how the SLB operations between firms work. It's largely a manual process for the HTBs. It's very difficult to get true HTBs pre-open....unless you call at least 1.5+ hours pre-open.
We know IB hates manual operations, and rightly so, as those operations are inefficient--whatever type they might come in.
How many times have you seen posts about brokers not having a shortlist up until noon? I've seen a ton. The 11am. that IBj states tells us why, it's how the system works.
I've also done HTB locates for years, and can get them done with a ton of work between multiple brokers (all VERY large brokers) even pre-market.
Yet, IB's auto locate takes zero effort on our part, and does a nice job of finding shorts for us. In the end, it is my favorite, and net end efficient way of getting the shorts I need.
Thanks.