Hello all, I am an automated trader who currently does so with Trillium/Schonfeld at the HFC co-lo facility. Trillium/Schonfeld has been great as a broker. They have great service, support and a decent setup over there. My main issue with them is the vast size of their "do no short" list. This is a list of securities that you are not allowed to short. Now to clarify: The list is broken up into three categories: 1. Impossible stocks to short, 2. Hard to short and 3. stocks available to short. Now being automated, I cannot attempt to short the "hard to short" list because I don't have time to call up the trade desk to see if the stock is available for shorting. My trading is high frequency. So because of this, I have to disregard the "impossible" and "hard to short" stocks on their do not short list. As of this morning, I loaded ths current list. It consists of 5204 stocks that I am not allowed to short. As the morning goes on, I find the list gets down to the 4200 range before 9:30. Now I don't know about you, but that list is HUGE. It is nearly 1/2 of the stocks in the market! My question is this: What are the lengths (in numbers of stocks) do other brokers who colo at HFC have for a do not short list? Are they on average smaller or larger? This list just seems crazy to me. Now, to give Trillium/Schonfeld the benefit of the doubt, they are working on a "short intraday" list that may free up a bunch of these stocks, but it hasn't happened yet. I guess I just like to be informed instead of going with the flow. Thanks for any input!
what does colo and HFC stand for? you can skip the line if you have to ask the question you don't know the answer
It's a problem at many firms since the new regs regarding short delivery for bd's came into effect Jan 1.
I have automated trading strategies with two firms and at both I have had more difficulty shorting since REG SHO. I've been trading through Schonfeld using their HUBB bbox API for a little over a year. I also integrate into their short availability server which give me real time updates as to the (short) status of symbols. They reject symbols not allowed for shorting if I have not read in the last updates from the server. I talked to Schonfeld support who said there is a type of solution in the pipe line - but I didn't really get into the details yet.
Yes, I believe that they are just stuck under SEC guidelines and are doing their best to resolve the issue.
dnsdeath Registered: Aug 2005 Posts: 3 08-15-05 09:21 AM Hmmm..this must be a tough question...... just making fun because you didn't answer my question about abbrevations
I think HFC stands for the Harboside Facility where Schonfeld / Trillium co-locates (co-lo) with ISLD / INET. Not sure what the C stands for (maybe center). In any case, the benefit of colocating with INET is the speed of execution.