Robert
Some advice regarding HAUP if I may since shorting junk is my main diet. You simply cannot successfully play in this area through someone like IB for the very reasons you stated.
The reason, as you probably already know, is that when is comes time to attack you can't. My strategy on something like HAUP is to start really small because who knows just how far the insanity will go? So on HAUP, for example, I started with 2K at 4.60, but was prepared to keep adding every .50 all the way to 6.00. Obviously that never happened and 4.85 was the hi if I remember right.
In any event as HAUP started to fade I added a few more in the 4.40's and 4.20s to a total of 6K. At that point I'm figuring if it takes out the hi of the day then it's off to the races and I want no part of it until it shows weakness so my stop was HOD now. My original plan was to smoke it on a break of 4, but once it squeezed to 4.60 and broke down(clearly visible on a 5 min chart) it was game on and I added 15K at 4.45 and another 10K when it broke 4.25.
All shares where later covered between 3.75-4.00. My point isn't that I'm great, but rather why you can't play these pos unless you can get a borrow when you need it most, which is when they start to rollover. By then IB is out of shares. I know because I learned the hard way.
So either get a better broker or stay away from these widow makers altogether.
Some advice regarding HAUP if I may since shorting junk is my main diet. You simply cannot successfully play in this area through someone like IB for the very reasons you stated.
The reason, as you probably already know, is that when is comes time to attack you can't. My strategy on something like HAUP is to start really small because who knows just how far the insanity will go? So on HAUP, for example, I started with 2K at 4.60, but was prepared to keep adding every .50 all the way to 6.00. Obviously that never happened and 4.85 was the hi if I remember right.
In any event as HAUP started to fade I added a few more in the 4.40's and 4.20s to a total of 6K. At that point I'm figuring if it takes out the hi of the day then it's off to the races and I want no part of it until it shows weakness so my stop was HOD now. My original plan was to smoke it on a break of 4, but once it squeezed to 4.60 and broke down(clearly visible on a 5 min chart) it was game on and I added 15K at 4.45 and another 10K when it broke 4.25.
All shares where later covered between 3.75-4.00. My point isn't that I'm great, but rather why you can't play these pos unless you can get a borrow when you need it most, which is when they start to rollover. By then IB is out of shares. I know because I learned the hard way.
So either get a better broker or stay away from these widow makers altogether.