This is a link to a bulletin from INET. http://www.inetats.com/subscribers/emailarchive/2006/20060118_2.asp Started Monday January 23, 2006 I found that all my short sale trades on QQQQ we delayed awaiting the uptick. I spoke with my broker (JPR Capital). He called INET spoke with their trading desk and they told him that QQQQ is not exempt and will require uptick on short selles. Nevertheless I found in the NASDAQ website that QQQQ is still exempt and can be sold on downtick. http://www.nasdaq.com/indexshares/n100_trading.stm I do not know what is going on. It looks to me that either they (INET, NASDAQ) removed exemption from QQQQ but did not announced it officially yet, or during the latest changes on INET they mistakenly forgot about QQQQ exemption. I am I the only one who noticed that? Does anyone know anything about this issue?
Could have to do with the fact that there is no longer sub-pennies on QQQQ. Has anyone quantified the impact of this yet?
I just spoke with the rep. of NASDAQ on the phone, she told me that as far as she knows there should be no changes in the status of short sales exemptions on QQQQ. She says : QQQQ- is exempt from uptick requirements !!
I have tried shorting the QQQQ a few times in the last 2 days and keep getting a hard to borrow message,anyone else had this problem.
I didnt think it would be as its one of the largest volume stocks out there,I will have to call my broker if this continues
I distinctly remember this same issue about 1 year ago. Many people were complaining that all of the popular ETF's were suddenly hard to borrow. Of course at that time we were well into a pretty severe downtrend off of that first week of January 2005.
the above is not a substitute hard to borrow list for any individual broker. lack of knowledge on ET board is incredible .