Anyone know which one's better? I short a lot of stocks (NYSE, Nasdaq & AMEX). I currently use IB but am considering a switch to Cybertrader. The salesman says that people tell him all the time that Cybertrader's short list is much better than IB, but I want to hear from the elite traders out there. Thanks!
I'm with Cybertrader, and I think IB has a better short list. IB has a very extensive short list, I hear it's also better than Genesis.
I have an account with IB but not with Cybertader. I am very happy with IB. IB posts its shortable stocks. Ask Cybertrader to post their list and then compare it yourself. Don't believe anyone by just saying that. My other recommendation is that if a stock is not in the short list of many brokers, like NFI, OSTK,... don't short them, play with their options.
I've heard that cyber has a default size limit for every shortable stock, something like 10,000 shares. And if you want to short more, then you have to call them. Is that true?
Cybertrader posts the size available for shorting in the level 2 grid, it's usually 5 or 10K. But as was previously mentioned, they don't have a short list. I'm a bit pissed that they don't have a more extensive short list than Genesis; that is one of the reasons I went with them. I figured because of the affiliation with Schwab, they would be good. I must say they do seem to have available shorts for the bigger names, it's just some of the small stuff, like on Friday I wanted to short MNTA, and they don't have it, while other brokers did. Very frustrating.
I just went to the Genesis website to get their list of shortable stocks so I could compare it with IB. Pretty stunning difference! Whereas IB offers 5,977 US stocks for shorting, Genesis only offers 3,943. Pretty amazing difference. I think it would take me a lot to switch from IB, considering the above information.