How good is IB and other retail firms with locating hard to borrow securities? Say I want to short some goofy preferred, lets say GS-A, this stock will always be hard to borrow but will IB or other retail firms locate it for you?
In my past experience, yes. You can pay your broker a very small percent to guarantee you x no. of shares. IB I believe has a very good short list available to their clients. You may find that the short shares are not available in volitile times but you can omit that issue by paying them to guarantee you have the ability. w