Looking for a broker-dealer or stock borrow loan desk that can provide historical HTB list data

Hi,

Are there any broker dealers that can provide me with historical hard to borrow list data?

Thanks,
Albert.

 

For the most part, no. You should also know that it works the other way around. Every day, there is an easy to borrow list. If your security is not on that list, you need a locate. Most clearing brokers keep that list for internal use only. They provide access vis FTP for automated traders or for trading platform to download it every morning. Those list will NOT show what hard to borrow cost were on that day or if you could have gotten a locate. Only, what was easy to borrow that morning.

1245

 

Thanks 1245

 

The problem is everyone's borrow rate is different and I have been unable to find any historic data even with that caveat. I believe this is one of the last big cash cows for brokers that they would rather have continue to languish in obscurity since any visibility on it only highlights how they make a ridiculous amount of money lending their customer's stock.

 

SIG, you are correct. Debit balance financing is a profit center, but short stock fees are the big money maker because they have little risk and require little firm capital. Clearing brokers love long/short market neutral funds. They are their cash cows.

1245

 

You can extrapolate from historic options prices.

 

Good point, the amount of violation of put/call parity generally reflects the borrow cost. Seems like someone could put together a database based on this and make some good money.

 

This will give you the interest and dividend flows based on a market players, but not for an individual account. A Clearing firm's reversal/conversion desks will have a different cost than a customer on Elite Trader.

 

It will be a decent representation. The market is opaque. SAC gets a better rate from Goldman than a small account would.

 

A $5B long/short hedge fund might get a 50 BP spread between long rates and easy to borrow rates, while a customer at a retail firm might get a 200 to 700 BP spread. A large hedge fund might get a locate for 100,000 shares of a hard to borrow stock at a -25% rate while a small client might not get a locate at all. It can be a big difference.