I just recently opened an account at IB. I'm trying to get
used to their Trader Workstation. They don't have a clear (to
me) short sale order. Since naked short sales are a no-no,
do you have to physically set up a borrow order for the
shares before you short sell on their system? Any help would
be appreciated. Thanks in advance..
It's really very simple. You'll notice a bar on your TWS
that indicates whether shares are available to short (bright green
means they are). If that is the case, then you simply sell
the number of shares you want to short. If you're flat, and
you want to go short 10 shares of XYZ, then you sell that many.
If you're long 10, then you sell 20, etc.
I personally don't have IB, yet, but I have had many online and
discount brokers etc and they all seem to work in the same way
where they don't want everyone calling in attaching X number of
shares to their account so they just go out and get every borrow
they can each day. Then you Sell or Sell Short the shares and
they will kick you out some alert or error if its not
available. Also doing a quick Google search I found the
database below which looks like you can search and see what and how
much is available in IB.
Sorry I don't have direct knowledge and I am sure someone here
with IB will help but that looks to be the process and I hope the
link helps now or in the future.
Question for Interactive Brokers Users-Help
Posted by johnc on 31st of Jul 2011 at 09:16 am
I just recently opened an account at IB. I'm trying to get used to their Trader Workstation. They don't have a clear (to me) short sale order. Since naked short sales are a no-no, do you have to physically set up a borrow order for the shares before you short sell on their system? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance..
I have IB. You just
Posted by sharonrose on 31st of Jul 2011 at 10:04 am
I have IB. You just click sell, and if you don't own any it will automatically sell short. If the shares are not available, the system will tell you.
It's really very simple. You'll
Posted by algyros on 31st of Jul 2011 at 09:31 am
It's really very simple. You'll notice a bar on your TWS that indicates whether shares are available to short (bright green means they are). If that is the case, then you simply sell the number of shares you want to short. If you're flat, and you want to go short 10 shares of XYZ, then you sell that many. If you're long 10, then you sell 20, etc.
I personally don't have IB,
Posted by tom on 31st of Jul 2011 at 09:25 am
I personally don't have IB, yet, but I have had many online and discount brokers etc and they all seem to work in the same way where they don't want everyone calling in attaching X number of shares to their account so they just go out and get every borrow they can each day. Then you Sell or Sell Short the shares and they will kick you out some alert or error if its not available. Also doing a quick Google search I found the database below which looks like you can search and see what and how much is available in IB.
Sorry I don't have direct knowledge and I am sure someone here with IB will help but that looks to be the process and I hope the link helps now or in the future.
http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/trading/SearchShortableStocks.php?cntry=usa&tag=United%20States&ib_entity=llc&ln=