Quote from TM_Direct:
well don, i know for a fact you get a nice spread from SLK from what you charge vs what they charge you...please don't play dumb with me...as for shorts: the Clearing firm is at TOTAL risk for the short...sure, they make good interest,,,until of course, they have stocks like OSTK that cannot be bought in and the firms getting marked left and right......there is SO much risk to a firm holding a short and they should be entitled tomake as much as possible IMHO.
Well, I don't think 1% is too outrageous of a differential, IMO.
Regarding retail brokers, the short stock is treated the same, regardless, it's just the cash that the short sale generates that seems "wrong" to me. A "differential" is one thing but keeping 100% seem a bit usurious to me. But this whole "making money on the money" is something we've been preaching to investors for years...and is obviously where most of the retail brokers money is being made. (Makes it so they can let you trade commission free)
Reminds of Goldman Sachs a couple years back...I went through the hassle of reading (nearly) the entire year end financials. After all their departments, all the IPO's, all the Ibanking, and with zillions of employees....their entire profit matched exactly to their "interest income" LOL.
Don
...as for shorts: the Clearing firm is at TOTAL risk for the short...sure, they make good interest,,,until of course, they have stocks like OSTK that cannot be bought in and the firms getting marked left and right......there is SO much risk to a firm holding a short and they should be entitled tomake as much as possible IMHO.