Interesting message on the TWS notification area

Posted on July 24, 2007
Tags: Day Trading |

I’ve just received this in the notification area of the TWS. I’ve never seen this before in almost 3 years of being with IB.

You recently attempted to enter one or more short sale orders in securities which were not available for shorting at that time. We have located shares on your behalf so you may be able to enter short sale orders for these titles within the next minute(s).

Stock : TASER INTERNATIONAL INC

Symbol : TASR

Exchange : NASDAQ

CostToBorrow : 9.25%

The rates shown are the indicative additional costs to borrow these securities above the normal borrow rates. The effective cost to borrow will be determined at the time the borrow is actually established.
Please note that the above stocks are generally deemed hard to borrow and may not be shortable again in the future. Additionally, certain borrowed positions have a higher likelihood of being recalled by the lender. In the event of a recall you may be required to repurchase positions on short notice or, if the lender initiates the repurchase, IB may pass on the transaction costs to you.

I’m guessing lots of IB folks are net short this stock. Also note the unusually high borrowing cost.

Comments

4 Responses to “Interesting message on the TWS notification area”

OONR7 on July 24th, 2007 12:38 pm

Interesting… I liked TASR today too but couldn’t short (obviously). Did you end up taking it?
yo on July 24th, 2007 1:42 pm

I believe they’re making an effort to quell the complaints from customers who have been unable to borrow shares at various times in numerous stocks. Still doesn’t do much good for daytraders, though.
oonr7 on July 24th, 2007 3:02 pm

there have been a number of times lately where’s that’s happened to me. In fact, just last week I was so annoyed because I would get so excited over a setup and go to place the order and find out there are no shares available. I contacted their customer support and they showed me how to configure the trading window so I can see if the stock is shortable. Definitely saves me some aggravation. In case you don’t know (I’m sure you do), just click on configure, select trading window and then add the Shortable option. Red means it’s not shortable, green it is.
eyal on July 25th, 2007 1:15 am

OONR7 - No I couldn’t get any TASR, wasn’t a big mover after all though. Yeah I’ve got it configured this way as well, just sometimes in the “heat of battle” I’m just working the numbers without noticing that it’s not available.

I considered moving some money to another broker which may help with availability of shortables but can’t find any that I really like enough.

yo - yes, having some shares available some time after your entry point and under those conditions isn’t very useful.