shorting on IB

D

drcha

Need advice.

Tried to short DBB this week. Got notice from IB when I tried to do this, saying they had to borrow the shares first. Okay. But next day, my pending order was simply gone from TWS, with no notice provided by IB about outcome of attempt to borrow shares.

I thought this thing was currently trading about 300-500K shares per day. Is it that thin?

Why doesn't IB provide some kind of explanation for my order, which just vaporized?

Appreciate any and all comments--thanks
 
Quote from drcha:

Need advice.

Tried to short DBB this week. Got notice from IB when I tried to do this, saying they had to borrow the shares first. Okay. But next day, my pending order was simply gone from TWS, with no notice provided by IB about outcome of attempt to borrow shares.

I thought this thing was currently trading about 300-500K shares per day. Is it that thin?

Why doesn't IB provide some kind of explanation for my order, which just vaporized?

Appreciate any and all comments--thanks
More...

Did you just expect IB to provide personal customer service?

let me finish cleaning up all the OJ coming out of my nose from laughing so hard....


just be glad they didnt actually lend you the stocks then turn around charge you 50% borrow rate without informing you first.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=134814&perpage=40&pagenumber=2
 
Do you have the little green/red indicator column enabled on your TWS? If so you'd see if there are shares available for shorting in an instant.

By default your orders are day orders, unless you overrode this. If your order to short wasn't filled, it'd be canceled at day's end.
 
if you bring up a stock in TWS, on the right hand side of my setup is GREEN=shortable, RED=usually no way in hell (ie. reg SHO), faded/fuzzy = maybe, but usually not right now or less than 1000 shares.

if i click on a fuzzy one, attempt to short it (way above the offer) and it comes back "shares aren't available to short", it automatically goes to something where IB attempts a locate. if they get it, and that can take minutes / hours, it will either turn green or a message will pop up stating that they've got a locate, but the interest rate is X%.
 
Thanks, everyone. I will try to get this new column showing. In my usual OCD way, I am now wondering if I forgot to change the "day" to "gtc" when placing the order. I have made that mistake before.

Sorry about the OJ, that can't be much fun. Yes, it was silly of me :D
 
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