Actually worse than that. You must Pre Borrow, not just locate. Supply and demand will dictate what fees are charged based on what you request, not on what you use. Hopefully this will only last a week....and, as far as the political ramifications of this....well, I guess I better not comment here. Don
It is a fixed fees per share for all the securities in the list which does not change. This is as per my broker. I hope you're right about lasting for a week but have my doubts. The shares are available to short but at an added cost. I'm again quoting my broker and am sure different firms have their own way of doing things.
Mr. Bright, you have me a little confused. You buy a put and the stock drops below the strike price. You either sell the put or buy the stock and exercise the put. What am i missing here?
I think you will find it very difficult to short the SSF's in those names. I suspect you're going to find their bids substantially lower than that of the underlying stock. Any liquidity provider is going to want to hedge with stock which they will not be able to if they need to short to do it. There is no free lunch.
Why bother shorting these names now, you've got the government bailing them out, and their interest is to see them go much higher. They have a lot more staying power than traders. Move on.