Basically i was fooling around with C today and noticed that when you go te sell it its basically impossible to short. You can sell it if you own it it would appear but not if you want to short it naked. So my question is this. Is this an Interacive Brokers thing or is this stock impossible to short? If I were at an arcade or porp type deal then is it it shortable? When I enter a naked short order even if theres shares on the bid at my price I cant execute on them. This seems very odd indeed and makes me wonder how many other shares are like this one. Is anybody out there able to short Citigroup? If so how is it done?...
in order to short you have to borrow it. if shortable stock inventory is exceeded you will not be able to short. i haven't looked but maybe the short threshold has been reached and it is almost impossible to short at the moment.
IB lists C in "dark green", i.e. shortable only when shares can be allocated. They don't have enough inventory available right now. You can always buy puts or short XLF (financial sector spdrs).
Is it possible to open a boxed position on it than sell the long position once you have obtained the short position?
You may be able to get the equivalent short delta position in C by utilizing the Single Stock Futures market. Use limit orders. Be careful of dividend streams as they are very important to the pricing of a forward contract. Interactive Brokers provides access via TWS to OneChicago. Best