Best Broker for OTC shorting?

What is the best broker for OTC shorting and shares under $5? I am using Etrade and they can never find the shares for me to to short.

 

You are trying to short non marginable stocks/ shares thus your broker does not have the shares to lend, I think you'll find this with most brokers. IB may be an exception as they don't have specific rules regarding stocks below $5 or allow cash accounts.

 

I looked at IB they won't let people under 21 open a margin account.

 

louisgeorge,

try centerpointsecurities.com, a friend of mine told me that they have very large inventory.

 

Is that all you do? We have a relationship for third party locates, but they charge you for the locate vs Wedbush only charges for hard to borrow stocks when you hold overnight. I would need a short list, emailed to me, to get you samples.

 

not true. your post is full of errors.

OP should call different brokers.

 

What are your account minimums and do you have any restrictions against OTC shorting and stocks under $5?

Any restrictions for those under 21?

 

I was always under the impression that naked short selling is prohibited in the U.S. by law. As a result, you had to get permission from someone to sell the stock they own in order to sell it short. The vast majority of shortable inventory comes from margin accounts, because you implicitly provided this permission when you hold stock in a margin account per the agreement you signed with your broker. Since most brokers consider stocks selling for less than $5 to be non-marginable, they're not in this pool of available stocks to short. So, my impression is that you'd have to get someone to explicitly agree to borrow their specific sub-$5 stock before you could short sell it, and that's way too high-touch to work for a punter trying to short $500 of random penny stock XYZ. However I could be all wrong, am I missing something there?

 

I will ask.

 

I will pm you.