I'll start my first post by being honest. I have been reading these forums for over a year and the time has come to ask for advice that I simply cannot find on the boards.
I'll make my bio brief.
-Started studying the markets in 2004.
-Opened an account in 2005 and started trading.
-6 months later, I had an equity curve that looked like a penis (testicles included). A wild ride that ended dramatically, with no loss and a zero tuition bill for a lesson well learned. I considered myself lucky.
-Halted trading immediately and decided I really needed to develop a system that suited my trading style.
After 8 months of brutally honest sim trading, I was getting comfortable with a very simple gameplan that seemed to be generating a profit with the right money management tools. The fundamentals of my particular system are somewhat limited to trading highly liquid Naz stocks with an average of 2 to 4 RT per day, at 500 to 1000 shares (I am daytrading).
Herein lies the dilemma. I fully anticipated moving my account to IB from my original non-direct access broker, but given the recent volatility in the market and reading the less than favorable comments about virtually non-existent shorts available at IB (during the recent downtrend), I feel as if I have been fooling
myself into believing that highly liquid Naz stocks were always readily available. My system relies heavily on shorting, as well as going long. I have, on occasion, checked IB's updated short availability list during the last couple of weeks,and lo and behold, the stocks in my "universe" are nowhere to be found. I'm referring to stocks like AAPL,SNDK,AKAM,BRCM, etc. Not thinly traded issues by any means. Now, they may be available on a
somewhat regular basis, but on the most recent heavily down days, they are painfully absent.
Naturally, I have several questions:
1) Is this an anomaly during heavy down days?
2) Is this an IB exclusive problem?
3) If I have to eliminate shorting on certain days, will I run into liquidity problems by increasing my share lots to 2 or even 3 thousand shares on stocks trading over 3.000.000 avg. daily volume?
I have many more questions, but I don't want to be a glutton on my first day. I want to thank those in advance that are generous enough to reply constructively to this post. My goal is to one day contribute to this forum.
I thank you for your patience and time.
I'll make my bio brief.
-Started studying the markets in 2004.
-Opened an account in 2005 and started trading.
-6 months later, I had an equity curve that looked like a penis (testicles included). A wild ride that ended dramatically, with no loss and a zero tuition bill for a lesson well learned. I considered myself lucky.
-Halted trading immediately and decided I really needed to develop a system that suited my trading style.
After 8 months of brutally honest sim trading, I was getting comfortable with a very simple gameplan that seemed to be generating a profit with the right money management tools. The fundamentals of my particular system are somewhat limited to trading highly liquid Naz stocks with an average of 2 to 4 RT per day, at 500 to 1000 shares (I am daytrading).
Herein lies the dilemma. I fully anticipated moving my account to IB from my original non-direct access broker, but given the recent volatility in the market and reading the less than favorable comments about virtually non-existent shorts available at IB (during the recent downtrend), I feel as if I have been fooling
myself into believing that highly liquid Naz stocks were always readily available. My system relies heavily on shorting, as well as going long. I have, on occasion, checked IB's updated short availability list during the last couple of weeks,and lo and behold, the stocks in my "universe" are nowhere to be found. I'm referring to stocks like AAPL,SNDK,AKAM,BRCM, etc. Not thinly traded issues by any means. Now, they may be available on a
somewhat regular basis, but on the most recent heavily down days, they are painfully absent.
Naturally, I have several questions:
1) Is this an anomaly during heavy down days?
2) Is this an IB exclusive problem?
3) If I have to eliminate shorting on certain days, will I run into liquidity problems by increasing my share lots to 2 or even 3 thousand shares on stocks trading over 3.000.000 avg. daily volume?
I have many more questions, but I don't want to be a glutton on my first day. I want to thank those in advance that are generous enough to reply constructively to this post. My goal is to one day contribute to this forum.
I thank you for your patience and time.
