Reverse positions with one order?

I use IB. I'm wondering if I can reverse positions with one order, e.g. ---

I'm short 1000sh of stock X. I place a buy order for 2000sh, covering the short position and going long 1000sh at the same time. Can this be done?

Thanks.

 

u can do tha t using bracket trader-- a separate program that you can attach to tws

 

I know that I can "over cover" a short and be long the diff but my broker/whatever, doesn't allow "over selling" a long to go short. I guess a buy is a buy regardless but there must be a distiction between sell and a sell short.

 

dedicated - it's because of short sale rules. You can sell an existing long position anytime, but selling short involves availability of inventory of stock and uptick rules.

 

You can do both at IB long or short. The short will just be split to account for the uptick rule. But say for example you were long 500 shares and wanted to go short 500 shares. You would place an order to sell 1000 shares. Your account would go from 500 to -500. But the neat thing at IB is commission. You would pay for one order of 1000 shares. .01 for first 500 shares then .005 for the next 500 shares. So you save in commissions by lumping them in one order.. I do this all the time.




Bert

 

Thanks, that is exactly what I was wondering - cutting the commissions. It seems that short --> long is probably a quick fill, but the converse, long --> short might take time for the short shares based on share availability and uptick rule.

Thanks also to the poster who mentioned Bracket Trader. I'm looking at it now, it looks like a very nice package.

-8

 

With IB this is no problem with QQQ, SPY and DIA....

Of course, IB DID have a problem a few weeks ago letting you
short QQQ at all! Arghhh...

 

Be careful, it does not work as advertised. See my post about that. Do a search for that on this board.